


Five Lives

by flavinja



Series: Replay AU [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Bisexual Felicity Smoak, F/M, Replay AU, Time Loop, Time Travel, minor past/side relationships but nothing too big
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-11-08 07:24:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 56,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11076801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flavinja/pseuds/flavinja
Summary: Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak live their own lives without ever meeting each other. The universe tries to fix this with a bit of time traveling.Loosely inspired on the book Replay by Ken Grimwood.





	1. The First Life

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is the first time I participate on OFBB, and I hope you enjoy the story. It's inspired on the book Replay, but if you have read it don't expect me to actually follow its plot, I'm just using the same concept, but in a very different way.
> 
> I'd like to thank Anna blackcanarydinah for being my beta-reader; Kasey myshipperlife for the artwork; and Anita yellowflicker for the continuing support.

[](https://ibb.co/nzRi2a)  


  


_December 31st, 2020._

“Happy new year, Ollie!” Says the girl on the other side of the phone, the buzz in her voice clear even through all the noises from the background.

“There’s still a few more hours for me here, Speedy” he answers, deciding not to voice his worry again, Oliver knows very well this was a lost cause, “Any chance I’ll see you next year? It’s been too long since you’ve been in Star City”.

“You know 2020 was a difficult year for all of us, Ollie, it’s easier if you come here. There’s nothing left in Star City for us anyway,” she says in a sigh, clearly not interested in talking about that. “Listen, I have a party to go back to. Call me if you decide to visit”.

“Thea...”, he starts but she has already hung up, ending the conversation as quickly as all the last ones.

Oliver just closes his eyes, turning off his phone. He knows he won’t receive any other call today, he’s lucky enough his sister remembered him as it is. It’s been over four years since Thea moved to the East Coast and he can count on the fingers of one hand how many times he has seen her since and all of them ended up in fights, about how much she’s drinking, about what she’s doing with her life. Not that he blames Thea, he’s not the best example either, and leaving the city might have been the best for her. She was right when she said there wasn’t anything left in Star City.

Nothing but destruction and death.

He dresses in his suit, putting the hood once more. He’s the last vigilante of Star City, the only one remaining after Wild Dog disappeared a few months back, like so many others before him. Oliver only knew Rene from their night job, they had only teamed up a couple times, but he still felt his absence in the streets of the city.

It’s better like this anyway, Star City is _his_ responsibility. He tried working with a team and what happened? Betrayals and deaths, that’s what. He patrols the city every night, but he knows there’s no point to it anymore, the city is a mess. The police are corrupted, has been for so many years that no one even tries to deny it anymore, no mayor or type of government has even lasted for over a year, the only people who didn’t immediately fled the city after the last disaster were the ones who didn’t have anywhere else to go, and this number is getting slower every day.

He wonders how different things could’ve turned out to be. If he had never been on that boat… If he had been able to stop Malcolm or Slade or Darhk... Tommy, Laurel, Quentin, Roy and his parents might all still be alive, happy, living their life like they were supposed to. Thea wouldn’t have gone away, living party after party to forget what she went through. Even Sara might have stayed around that time, instead of doing whatever she was doing these days.

Maybe John would still be his friend. Oliver looks at his phone, wonders if Diggle would even answer if he called, if all those years were enough to forgive him… Oliver is never going to find out, Diggle is better off without him in his life, living with his wife and kids away from all of that. At least he and Lyla are alive, that’s more than he can say about most of people whose lives he touched.

Oliver is the only one who stayed, now he’s having some difficulty remembering why. For the last eight years, he’s tried to save the city, he’s dressed up and put arrows in how many people were necessary to make it safe and, every year, a new threat emerged and he was unable to stop it. Maybe he wasn’t their savior, but their doom, somehow attracting all the chaos to everyone’s life.

He looks down to his watch, noticing it’s midnight. He’s in the top of a building, in the center of the city, the only place where there’s still people living, but there’s no celebration to be heard. The habitants of Star City have no reason to celebrate a new year arriving, Oliver included.

Oliver runs all the way through what’s left of the city, it’s even more dead than he has even seen. There’s nothing left for him here. There’s nothing left of him either.

 

~~

 

Felicity is laughing when she opens the door to her apartment, it isn’t a full-on laughter, but the alcohol helps. It’s a little over two a.m., too soon to come over from a new year’s party, but Mike insisted on coming home early and, to be honest, Felicity didn’t complain much. Wayne’s party were always more fancy than fun, and most of them were interested in talking business.

“Now the real party can start,” she says to Mike, grinning while she drops her coat in the couch and walked in his direction. Mike just smiles and pulls her closer by the hand, kissing her.

“It’s January 1st,” he states, forehead pressed with hers; Felicity just hums in response, “It’s been two years since we started dating.”

They had been sleeping together for a while before that, but it was only after the year changed that Mike had the courage to ask her to make things official.

“Yes, then let’s celebrate,” Felicity answers, starting her way through opening his shirt when his hands stop her. “What’s wrong, hon?”

“Nothing. You’re perfect”, Mike says, his eyes bright as ever, “I love you so much, Felicity”, he steps back, making her frown, “I’ve been thinking of that for so long and… I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” before she can react, he’s off to the couch, searching for something in his coat.

“Mike…,” she starts, but it’s too late, he’s already kneeling in front of her, a small box in his hands.

“Felicity Smoak, will you marry me?”

For someone who talks as much as her, she finds herself with a great lack of words at this time. Felicity is paralyzed. Saying she didn’t see this coming would’ve been a lie, she wasn’t oblivious to Mike’s heart eyes and he wasn’t exactly great at secrets either, but didn’t think he would ask her _now_ , in the middle of the night, after a party. She didn’t have enough time to think of what she’d answer.

“Felicity? If this is too soon, I can wait, I’m not trying to pressure you… You can just pretend I’ve never said anything,” Mike is already up again, stumbling to hide the ring in his coat again, his face red with shame.

Mike is one of the nicest guys of Gotham, he’s an engineer in Wayne Enterprises, they met each other when she was promoted from IT to the Science department over five years ago, and they’ve been together for two of those years. He’s nerdy, cute and not awful in bed… And she’s absolutely not in love with him.

She wishes she was. She tried to, pretended to be. But there’s no denying it for herself, she’s not and has never been in love with Mike. When she got out of MIT and moved to Gotham, she just wanted to live a simple life. After all that happened with Cooper, she just wanted a quiet life… She can have that with Mike.

She’s not hiding herself in IT anymore, she’s got a nice job, it’s not the highest paying at the company, but Bruce Wayne knows who she is and most of her coworkers are admired by her skills. She has fun at work and, when she gets too bored, she hacks for fun, staying away from anything too illegal.

Felicity can marry Mike. They would have pretty children, they could move to a bigger apartment. They would work together in projects, pick their kids at day-care at Wayne Enterprises at the end of day, catch up on TV shows and then sleep at night. She could be happy.

But she wouldn’t be fulfilled.

“I’m so sorry, Mike,” she says finally, knowing there’s no way out of that, “I can’t do this.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay, really, you’re not ready, I get it…” Mike laughs in a nervous way, trying to put his hands in the pants’ pockets but somehow failing to get it right.

“It’s not that,” she interrupts, “You’re amazing, Mike, but I’ll never be ready”.

“We don’t need to get married!”

“Stop,” she sighs, “It’s not going to work, Mike, I’m sorry but we should break up.”

That finally makes Mike stop talking, he doesn’t have anything to say to that, the embarrassment is giving place to hurt and Felicity can see that in his eyes. She knows Mike too well to know the tears will start soon, she doesn’t want to be there to see it, she already feels really bad as it is.

“I’m really sorry,” she says again, “I’ll find somewhere else to sleep today, okay?”

Felicity is out of the door even before he can process what she’s said. She doesn’t have anywhere to go, she can get a cab and try to find a hotel with a room available, but instead she just walks around the streets. It’s the first day of 2021 and she broke up with her boyfriend.

Her boyfriend, who she works with and will have to see again every day, unless one of them change jobs. She broke his heart, she should be the one to change. It’s not like it’s her dream job anyway…

She’s going to be 32, single and without a job. What does she have going on with her life? Something is clearly missing and maybe she’ll never find out what.

 

~~

 

The sun rises in the west coast of the United States, the first of the year. Oliver watches it from the top of a random building, there’s no crime happening, his bow is resting on the floor, a few feet from him. He’s resting on the ground, trying to find one good thing to look forward to.

Felicity is sitting on the stairs of her building entrance. The sun is rising, so she knows it’s been a few hours, she has walked in circles over her neighborhood and stopped in the same place where she started. A good metaphor for her life, she thinks. It’s late enough that Mike would be sleeping, she could get into the apartment and get some of her stuff, but she’s too much of a coward to do that.

With the tiredness of a long day and a long year, both Oliver and Felicity close their eyes. The feeling that something went wrong in their lives is present in their hearts, an emptiness that won’t go away and that they can’t name, not yet. Without realizing, they doze off.

The next time they wake up, it won’t be 2021 anymore.

 


	2. The Second Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was anxious to post this chapter, and *actually* start the story so I decided to post it one day earlier, yay :)
> 
> PSA: Because of the nature of the story I'm going to be alternating between Oliver and Felicity's POVs, whenever I change there's a ~~ but it should be pretty easy to get who's POV it is. Also there is a lot of time jumps in the fic, so I advise you to pay attention to the dates or else it's going to get confusing. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy the chapter!

_November 28th, 2006_

Oliver blinks in confusion as he wakes up, he feels more rested than he can ever remember feeling. The last memory he has is of patrolling the city during the first night of the new year, and now he’s laying in a comfortable bed, most certainly not his, with what seems to be no clothes and he has no idea of how he got there.

His mind is already going through a million possibilities as his body moves in search of his clothes while looking out for any danger, even though the room looks completely normal. Was he drugged? Is he _still_ drugged? This room gives him a sense of familiarity, but he can’t pinpoint why.

He finds man’s clothes on the floor, but he doesn’t recognize them. He starts to get dressed when he realizes his body is different, free of any scars or tattoos.

_What the fuck is going here?_

Either way, Oliver just wants to get out of there before he can find out. He’s almost out of the room when the door opens, and a girl comes in, holding two coffee cups and a smile on her face.

“You’re already leaving? I brought coffee,” she says, handing him one of the cups. “I thought you said you only had to leave in the afternoon,” she bites her lips and all Oliver can do is frown, feeling completely lost.

“Sorry… I’m just trying to figure out how I got here last night,” he answers, giving her one of his fake smiles. It’s been too long since he had to use one of those, but he tries to keep his tone flirty enough that she wouldn’t notice.

“Damn it, Ollie, I didn’t think you were _that_ drunk! Do you even remember anything about last night?” She asks, putting her cup down on desk and crossing her arms, Oliver may not know who she is but he knows she’s pissed at him now. She squeezes her eyes and Oliver finds himself taking a step back, “God, you really are an asshole. Do you even remember my name?”

“Is this some kind of trick?” He questions, trying to make sense of what was happening. Was this some test? Is this girl trying to take information out of him?

“You’re unbelievable. Get out of my house!” She yells, huffing in frustration.

For a moment, he considers trying to get information out of her, but getting out of that place seems to be the more sensible thing to do. The room leads to a small hallway and a living room that look completely innocent, he tries to find evidence that someone is watching him, but there’s nothing to find. The house seems to be empty except for him and the girl, who stayed in her room. The outside seems like a normal house, albeit a small, in a residential neighborhood.

Oliver searches his pockets and finds his wallet, which is full of money, an old ID and credit cards in his name, and an old phone that seems to be from decades before. Before he can do anything, his phone starts ringing, the name _Tommy_ shows up on the screen.

“Is this some kind of sick joke?” Oliver answers the phone, tired of this whole pretense. Where was he? And what do they want from him?

“Woah, something wrong, buddy?” the voice says from the other side. Tommy’s voice. “You’re at Vicky’s?”

“Who the hell is Vicky?” Oliver finds himself asking out loud before he can think of more important questions.

“The hot one from econ? I thought I saw you leaving with her last night. Don’t tell me you slept with her and already forgot her name, man,” Tommy laughs. “Anyway, I’m calling to say I’ve just heard that Laurel arrives in Starling today, if you still intend to go talk to her, you should go today instead of tomorrow. You know Moira’s gonna be pissed if you ditch Thanksgiving.”

Oliver just breathes in and out, trying to process all the information he was just given. Laurel? Moira? Someone was really trying to mess with his mind. It’s not the first time he’s been in some kind of dream-reality, god knows he’s seen his share of weird things in the last few years. Now he just needs to find a way to get out of there.

 

~~

 

Felicity opens her eyes slowly, content to keep sleeping for the rest of the day. She shifts positions, waiting to find Mike when she opens her eyes  but then she remembers the night before: she broke up with Mike.

_Oh my god, how did this even happen?_

When she looks around her, she finds herself in her old room in Vegas. Did she somehow fly to her _mom’s_ last night? Why would she go there out of all places?

And what’s up with all these posters and books, her mom changed her room to a neutral one so many years ago, this looks like when she was still in college. Confused, Felicity makes her way to her bathroom, surely she just needs to have a shower and her memories will be back.

“Oh no,” she says when she looks in the mirror, her hair is brown. Her natural brown. In a way she hasn’t seen it in way too long. She has a few pimples and her skin is a lot oilier than usual, and her cheeks are… childish. She looks like a teen.

She rushes all the way downstairs and finds her mom on the sofa, painting her nails like all is right in the world. She has the same blonde hair and makeup as always, but something is different about her.

“Mom! What is going on?” Felicity yells, not sure what else to say, Donna just frowns,  looking at her daughter like she’s crazy. “And why do we look so young?”

“You think I look younger? I’ve been using this cream, I’m so glad it’s working!” Donna is all smiles to her. “Are you okay, baby? You should have breakfast, all that studying is making you pale!”

“Mom, be serious, please! How did I get here?”

“What do you mean? By plane, I’d hope! You sure wouldn’t go all the way from MIT to Vegas in a stranger’s car,” Donna states like it’s obvious.

She then gets up and makes her way to the small kitchen. “Do you want some cereal, honey?”

Felicity doesn’t even bother answering, she just runs up the stairs and locks herself in her room. She pays more attention to her room this time, noticing an ancient computer on her desk. Her computer, one of her babies which died way too long ago. It’s not even supposed to work, yet when she turns it on it runs as if it’s not as old as Felicity remembers.. It’s too slow for Felicity’s taste, but she manages to find the information she was looking for: 2006. She’s in 2006. She hacks all websites she can find, trying to find one source that indicates this is some sort of prank, but she found none. Everywhere she looks confirmed the year is  2006.

Except she’s completely sure the day before was 2020. How does the world suddenly go fourteen years back in time? Even if some really good hackers changed the date of all major news websites, there’d still be some trace of past news on the internet. There are not many people in the world who would be good enough to do that and make it undetectable even to her. And even if those people existed, it wouldn’t explain her house and her hair, or her showing up in Vegas in the middle of the night.

 

~~

 

_December 15th, 2006_

Oliver’s been stuck in this world for over two weeks and he still has no idea how to get out of it. He’s gone to every important place he could think of, he’s searched for glitches and holes in the universe, anything he could use to get out, but he’s found nothing. Everyone he meets acts like it’s 2006, everyone is exactly at the place they would be, acting the way they should. If it wasn’t for his memories Oliver would have no reason to even suspect there’s anything wrong with this reality.

A part of him is tempted to just give up. So what if this reality is wrong and he knows it’s not 2006 anymore? This is a lot better. Nothing bad has happened to anyone he cares about. The first day he arrived and went to his house, the old Manor, it was the first time he felt at home in a long time. His family had a Thanksgiving dinner, one which he used to hate when he was younger but which seemed magical from his new point of view. Thea was just a little thing, eleven years old and not even having gone through a growth spurt yet, and ran to hug him when he arrived at home. His parents lectured him on college – apparently he had just dropped out of one - but mostly seemed happy to let go of the subject as soon as he changed it.

He’s trying to not get attached to people here, they are not _real_ , they can’t be. He knows what reality looks like and it’s nothing like that, this is just a memory. Just a fantasy. But he can’t deny that it sure as hell feels real sometimes, and the more he stays there, the more it seems like maybe he’s wrong. Maybe this is the real world and everything else was just a weird dream. He tries contacting everyone he knows who would have an answer, most wouldn’t even talk to him and the ones who would thought he is crazy. No one has even heard of him.

Barry is still a kid in college, not knowing anything about speed or time travel. Constantine says reality is normal around Oliver, the only thing out of place seems to be his mind. The man gave Oliver some  simple advice: if he’s happier in this world, he should just enjoy it. It doesn’t matter what happened or why, he’s in 2006 now and this is his reality, he should take his second chance.

Oliver is starting to think that maybe Constantine is right. He needs to stop worrying and just start living again.

He glances at his phone, there are a few unanswered calls and a lot of text messages by Tommy. Oliver looks at the last one. _What’s up with u? Party tonight! Laurel will be there._

He’s faked being ill for the last couple weeks so Tommy would leave him alone enough for him to search for clues, but now that winter break started, Tommy is not buying it anymore. Oliver can’t afford to stay hidden in his room for a lot longer before people start asking questions. He hasn’t had fun in so long, he doesn’t even know what it would be like to go out with Tommy and his old friends. Before he starts regretting his decision, Oliver texts Tommy confirming he’ll be there. Screw it, if he’s going to stay there he might as well enjoy it.

 

~~

 

“I just want to understand what’s wrong with you, baby!” Donna yells for what must be the fifth time since they started this conversation. “I know you don’t like getting out much, but you need to leave your room. I’m worried about you, Felicity, last time you were here you left in a hurry, and Jenny told me you are not going to classes…”

“Jenny as in my roommate? How the hell did you even talk to her?!” For the first time since she arrived home, Felicity starts paying attention to what Donna was saying, she has no patience for this discussion. She has a lot of bigger things to worry about. “Leave me alone, Mom, I know what I’m doing and it’s none of your business.”

“You might be in college, but you’re still seventeen and I am still your mother, Felicity, so I have the right to be worried about you!” Donna shouts, trying to get close enough of her daughter to hold her hand. “Just talk to me, honey. Is this about a boy?”

“Oh my god! No!” Of course her mom would somehow make this about a boy, even when she was a grown up adult this was all Donna could think of.

“What am I supposed to think? Going to MIT was your dream, and you come back acting weird, skipping classes and being distant.”

“We’ve never been close, Mom, stop making it such a big deal. I can take care of myself,” tired of having this discussion, she gets up and leaves to her room again.

Her mom would blame this on her being a rebellious teenager, but this couldn’t be farther from the truth. _Seventeen!_ How in the world is she seventeen? She isn’t even an adult. She’s in a teen’s body, going to college, having to come to Vegas for holidays and explain herself to her mom.

The concept of hell doesn’t exist in Judaism, but if it is real, Felicity is sure she’s in one. At this point it is the most logical explanation, this is her own personal hell. Honestly, this explanation makes as much sense as any of any other she came up in the last weeks. She’s searched every corner of the internet for an answer and now she’s even started looking through books to see if anyone has anything at all to say about it. The closest she got were literal _fiction_ books.

Felicity is a science person and she doesn’t like mysteries, but more and more it’s looking like she’s never going to find an answer for how she just woke up one day fourteen years in the past. There isn’t anyone she can turn to for answers, no one who wouldn’t find her incredibly crazy. All her friends are around the country in universities – or worse, high school! – and don’t even know her. She didn’t have many friends back at MIT, aside from a roommate, who apparently was closer to Donna than her, and Cooper – and no way she’s befriending that asshole again after what he’s done to her.

The only person she has is her mom, and she just yelled at her. Felicity sighs  loudly at the thought. She and her mom have never been close, not when she was little, not when she was in college and especially not after she moved to Gotham. Donna _hated_ Gotham – a reason that factored in Felicity’s decision to move there when she was mulling over her job offers after she graduated – and Felicity hated coming back to Vegas. They didn’t have anything in common. But, in the end, she was still her mom and they loved each other. Resigning herself to her fate, Felicity gets out of her room and finds her mom sulking in the kitchen, heating some pre-made food.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” she whispers, touching her mom’s shoulder and bringing her closer for a hug, “It’s just been difficult adapting.”

“Oh, honey, it’s okay,” Donna says, squeezing Felicity even closer against her, “College is hard, but I’m sure you’re going to do great, you’ve always been so smart.”

Felicity can only smile at that. She knows she won’t have any problem with her  classes, she has mastered all of these subjects many years ago. She’s not sure what she’s going to do now, she doesn’t have any new leads and things don’t seem to have changed at all, but she knows she can’t stay hidden in her room forever. The only thing Felicity can do is go back to MIT and act like everything's normal. Maybe this is her normal now.

 

~~

 

_August 26th, 2007._

Oliver is sprawled in the bed, Laurel by his side, completely naked. He hesitated a bit before pursuing anything with Laurel, afraid he would screw things up, that maybe he should encourage Tommy to be with her instead, the way it was… before. It’s been too long, though, and more and more the memories just look like a bad dream. So Oliver tells himself that is all they were. Some kind of warning - that he shouldn’t take anything for granted; that he needs to spend time with the people he loves. That he should do things right by Laurel, treat her the way she deserves. All his nightmares are gone, disappeared, and he needs to earn living in this dream. He needs to do his best.

“I wish we could stay here forever,” Laurel mumbles into his chest. “You know… Now that you’re going to study near me again, I was thinking maybe we could share an apartment,” she bites her lips as she says that, looking anxiously at him. They have not been back together for too long, but he and Laurel have enough history that this is not a weird assumption of where they are moving.

A memory of this same question pops up in his head, Oliver stomach turns just thinking about it. In the other reality, he freaked out and slept with Sara when Laurel brought that up. But that hasn’t happened here, he may have cheated on Laurel before but he wouldn’t make the same mistakes again.

“That sounds wonderful,” he says, pushing back any thoughts of _before_ , he kisses her and makes sure she knows how happy he is right now.

He knows fear, and that’s not how he feels when Laurel asks him to move in with her. He’s happy with Laurel. Things are like they are supposed to be.  Every time he kisses Laurel, hugs his sister, laughs with Tommy and talks to his parents, Oliver feels something settling in his heart, like this is what his life is really like. Like he’s worthy of all this happiness.

Oliver walks down the stairs of his house holding Laurel’s hand, she’s smiling and talking about how they have to start looking for apartments before classes start back up, because then she’s going to be very busy. He’s only partially listening to that, as much as he’s glad to be with Laurel, he’s still not really interested in apartment-hunting.

As soon as he reaches the first floor of the manor, he hears some sort of commotion. His mother is talking loudly with someone, Raisa is near her, looking apprehensive. Before he can even understand what is happening, he’s putting Laurel behind him in a protective way.

“What’s going on?” Oliver voices, making all heads turn to him. Moira’s face is all red and full of tears, the guy who she was talking with looks with pity at him. His mom makes her way to him immediately, hugging him.

“Oliver…” Moira says, her voice shaking. “There’s been a storm…. Your father’s boat, it sank.”

She continues talking, explaining about how they are conducting searches and there’s still hope, but Oliver is not listening. The Gambit went down. Just like he knew it would even though it hadn’t happened yet.

His memories are real. He could have stopped that. He could have saved his dad.

“It’s okay, Ollie, they’ll find him,” Laurel says beside him, making him sit in one of the chairs in the living room.

Oliver knows they won’t find him. Even if his dad makes it to Lian Yu, there’s no way Robert Queen would survive the hell of that island. And Oliver knows everything would be there exactly like he remembers. For all intents and purposes, Robert is already dead.

He looks around to the familiar faces in the room. Are they destined to die too, just like his father? No, this can’t be it. He can’t do anything to stop Robert’s destiny from happening, but he’s in Starling this time, he changed fate and he can do it again. Now that he knows his memories are real and he can interfere, he needs to do something about it.

This is how everything starts, with a boat sinking and his father dying. But it’s not going to be the same ending, not if he has anything to say about it. Oliver tried so hard to honor his father’s wishes during his life, to be the Green Arrow, to save the city, and all he managed to accomplish was seeing everyone he loved die or leave. He’s not going to make the same mistakes twice, he will honor his father’s memory and make everything right, but not by being the Arrow.

If this is his second chance, he’s going to take it and have the life Oliver Queen was always supposed to have. But before that, he needs to ensure nothing is going to ruin his life this time. And the only way to do that is to stop the one person who started it all: Malcolm Merlyn.  

 

_September 17th, 2007_

In the almost one year Oliver’s been in this new universe, if there’s one place he didn’t think he would end up again it is the A.R.G.U.S. headquarters. Sweat slides down his back, his body’s way to make clear how uncomfortable he is in this situation. Oliver continues to ignore any signs his body and mind scream at him though, he thought a lot about this and as morally questionable as , A.R.G.U.S. is, it’s  the best chance he has to end things quickly and quietly.

He spent the entire three weeks since his father’s death training so he could kill Malcolm himself, but he still isn’t anywhere near ready to go into the field. Oliver learns quickly that while his muscle memory remained, his body couldn’t keep up with it. He lacks muscle and strength, and it’s going to take more than a few weeks of training to make him ready to fight Malcolm, who is at his peak now. There are still five years until the Undertaking, more than enough for him to become who he used to be, but Oliver can’t do that, not again. He’s tired of being a vigilante. He’s tired of trying to save the city. If A.R.G.U.S. wants, they can do that.

“Mr. Queen, I must say I’m surprised to see you,” Amanda Waller says, as she enters the small room, closing the door behind her. She looks at him with suspicion, and even though he’s absolutely sure he’s the one with all the information, Amanda continues to look as she knows something he doesn’t.

“Waller… It’s been a long time since I last saw you.”

“I don’t think we’ve met,” she says, the stiffness in her body betraying her thoughts of him. “Please, Mr. Queen, enlighten me as to how you know about this facility or me.”

“I have information that would interest your agency. I’m willing to give to you, but I want something in return,” he answers, ignoring her inquiry, Amanda doesn’t even blink, just nods for him to continue. “I need you to kill Malcolm Merlyn.”

 

~~

 

_May 8th, 2008._

Felicity sits alone in the coffee shop, a few tables away from her, Cooper is talking to a few of his hacktivist friends. She’s not close enough to hear what they’re talking but that doesn’t matter, she doesn’t care, she just wants to keep track of them. Since she came back, Felicity kept close attention to what Cooper was doing. Maybe part of her wondered if him not meeting her would change anything at all, but it doesn’t seem so. Not only is Cooper part of the hacktivist group , but he’s even more reckless without her.

None of them have her talents, so they can’t do much damage, but oh have they tried. Felicity knows, she’s been watching them and collecting information. She debated if she should interfere, the FBI would probably catch them at any moment anyway, so she should just mind her business, but she can’t stop herself.

Felicity remembered the way her heart broke when she heard about Cooper dying, but even more than that she remembered the betrayal of finding out that she was lied to for so long. She remembered the feeling of the gun pressed to her head and the words Cooper spit at her. He had managed to get away from that whole deal before being arrested and then disappeared, but Felicity wouldn’t let this happen again. Maybe she’s just being petty about it now, considering that this Cooper has never exchanged more than a couple words with her, but, honestly, Felicity couldn’t care less. No matter how much she loved him once upon a time, she believes Cooper deserves to be arrested.

She investigates everyone in the hacktivist group and tips the FBI only on Cooper. Without her virus, she’s pretty sure no one is going to cut him a deal, but they will most definitely want to interrogate him after all the evidence she sent them. Now it’s just a matter of waiting until the FBI comes, and Felicity wants to be there to watch it happen.

“Is this seat occupied?” Felicity hears a voice asking and is forced to remove her eyes from the other table, noticing a woman in a suit staring at her.

Before she can answer, the woman sits down next to her. She’s in the corner of the coffee shop, and there are at least two other empty tables in the place, there’s no reason for her to sit there. Felicity arches her eyebrows, trying to understand what is happening. Normally, she’d  be up for flirting with strangers, but right now she’s trying to spy on Cooper.

“You have a very impressive record, Ms. Smoak,” the woman says right before Felicity can say anything.

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” Felicity’s instincts tell her to get up now, but curiosity is gets the better of her  and she remains in her seat.

“Not yet, but I do know you. I represent a government agency that would be very interested in talking to you. Your skills could be very useful for us. For our country,” she stops for a second, looking at Felicity right in the  eyes. “You’re a genius, Ms. Smoak, you’ve graduated MIT so fast it’s almost like you already knew everything. You must be bored of seeing all this stuff… Seeing how interested you were in your _friend’s_ activities,” she says, nodding towards Cooper’s table, “I think you’d like the job we’re offering,” she hands Felicity a card with just a number written in it, “Please, give us a call.”

Felicity never gets a chance to respond, the woman is up and out of her view in only a few seconds, leaving her alone with only a phone number and a million  questions. This isn’t the first job offer she’s gotten, she is set to graduate this week and a lot of companies already called her with job proposals. She’s never thought of working for the government before; after the whole Cooper thing, she thought it was better to hide herself in a company, but she can’t stop the feeling that maybe this is what was missing in her life before. And there’s only one way she can find out.

It takes her two days to call the number and go for a meeting. After that, it takes several more meetings until she’s convinced. They talk values, safety, precautions, job description. Felicity searches for credentials, she looks up where she’s getting involved and, in the end, she signs a contract.

“Welcome to A.R.G.U.S.,” the woman who recruited her says, “Director Waller is anxious to meet you.”

When Felicity receives an access card with her name on it, she knows her life is going to change drastically. This is definitely not going to be like IT for Wayne Enterprises, and she is ready for it.

 

_August 25th, 2010._

“Ms. Smoak, how far along are you with your task?” Waller asks her, from behind.

Amanda Waller is the director of A.R.G.U.S. and not her actual supervisor, which only makes Felicity more nervous to be watched. She knows her work is important and she has the advantage of remembering things that haven’t happened yet, but even then she’s not a magician and has to actually provide proof of what she finds, it doesn’t help that Waller seems to have some special interest in this case and doesn’t stop asking her questions.

“I’m getting there, I have a program running data to find anything mentioning A.R.G.U.S. in the WikiLeaks servers,” she answers as she keeps typing quickly.

She’s well familiar with WikiLeaks, and although there’s been way too many years since she was a hacktivist, she always admired their work and defended the right of the public to have information. Now that she works for the government, she can’t afford this kind of opinion. Especially when her agency works solely with secret information that can’t go public.

“We should still have a few weeks before they publish anything new…,” Felicity mutters.

“Is that so? And how do you know that?” The way Waller looks as she asks makes Felicity shiver. “You seem to know a lot about them, Ms. Smoak,” she pauses briefly, not letting Felicity answer, “Follow me to my office.”

Felicity freezes in her place, even though Waller is already moving and expecting her to follow. She’s been working for A.R.G.U.S. for two years and she’s rarely seen Waller call anyone in for a private aside from giving clearance-specific orders. Waller never minded publicly humiliating employees before, so if she wants to yell at Felicity, there’s really no reason to not do it there.

“I’ve been observing you in the last few weeks,” Waller tells her, not even waiting until Felicity closes the door behind her. “You are very careful, I’ll give you that, but you have been slipping up sometimes. You predicted correctly a lot of WikiLeaks’ actions and failed to explain how you acquired the information…” Waller just stares at her, sitting on her chair and waiting for Felicity’s answer.

“I swear I’m not working with them if that’s what you’re thinking!” Felicity protests, already planning a defense, “I haven’t been a hacktivist for years and even then, it was never anything as big as WikiLeaks. I value my job, ma’am…”

“I have no doubt of that, Ms. Smoak, we wouldn’t be having this conversation here if I thought you were a traitor,” she interrupts, signing at Felicity to sit on the other chair, “Now, tell me how you had access to that information and don’t even think of lying to me.”

“You are never going to believe me,” Felicity mutters, debating to herself what to say to Waller and deciding there’s no good option. “But I know all this because I’ve seen it happen before. I’m from the future. Not a lot from the future, just a few years and I don’t even remember a lot, I wasn’t even sure if it was real, but things were repeating so I think so and I thought there was no harm in using what I know to help my job and my country…”

A part of Felicity thinks Waller is going to fire her as soon as she manages to shut up, but as she looks to her boss’ eyes, she feels that, somehow, this is exactly what Waller wanted to hear. Her eyes are shining with the news and Felicity feels herself freeze in her place. She talked too much.

“I always knew you were special. And to think we wasted your knowledge with computers all this time. Now, let’s talk about your future here,” Waller says with a smile in her face. It’s the first time Felicity has ever seen her smile and it’s the scariest she’s ever looked.

“Are you firing me?” The question leaves Felicity’s lips before she can control it and a part of her hopes that’s it, because the alternatives are much worse.

“Not at all. Don’t worry, Ms. Smoak, you are not leaving ARGUS any time soon.”

Deep inside her, Felicity knows this is not a good thing at all.

 

~~

 

_August 30th, 2010._

When Oliver went to ARGUS three years ago, he thought it was a calculated risk. He made a deal with Waller, gave her all the information he had on the future and, in return, she got rid of Malcolm Merlyn, then once their business concluded, they’d never talk again. It seemed like wishful thinking, but after Waller let him go and, a few days later, Merlyn disappeared, Oliver thought things had gone his way after all.

For three years, it was like none of that existed. Tommy might have been a bit worried about his father’s fate in the beginning, but it’s not like they were close before and, after a while, he got over it and assumed a place at Merlyn Global. Oliver tried to live the life he should’ve had, the life his father wanted him to have. He finished college and started shadowing Walter at Queen Consolidated, he dated Laurel for at least one more year and, when they broke up, it was not because he cheated or was irresponsible, but simply because they didn’t work together. He was trying to be close to his mother and saw Thea growing up. Everything is the way it supposed to be.

At least it was, until Lyla Michaels showed up at his doorstep, demanding to escort him to see Waller.

“So, agent Michaels, how long have you been in A.R.G.U.S?” Oliver tries to chat, looking at Lyla at his side of the car.

Lyla is the first person he has seen from his past, aside from Waller, and it’s unexpected. If he’s not wrong, she and John would have just gotten divorced around this time. Although he has Tommy and his family again, there are days when Oliver finds himself missing Diggle and the other friends he made in his crusade. He knows it’s another life, very different from now, and John has no place in this one, but he wonders sometimes if their paths won’t cross in the future.

“Long enough to know that I don’t have to entertain you,” she answers, arching her eyebrows at him.

Since the got in the car, Oliver has tried to get her to tell him anything, either about what Waller wanted from him or just making up conversation. She probably thinks he’s trying to flirt with her, which couldn’t be farther from the truth, even if John doesn’t know him in this life, Oliver would never try to hit on his wife.

“We’re here,” Lyla mentions, as they reach ARGUS headquarters.

He expects to be taken to Waller’s office, instead Lyla leads him somewhere else, to a room with a one-way mirror. From the other side of mirror, Waller stares at the interrogation room. Inside, sitting in a chair, is a woman he’s never seen before. She’s not cuffed, but she’s biting one of her nails and her legs are shaking non-stop, he doesn’t even need to stop to analyze her to know she’s very nervous.

“Who’s this?” He asks Lyla, but she just shrugs and gets out of the room, leaving him alone with Waller.

The girl turns to him and, even though he’s sure she can’t see him through the mirror, Oliver thinks she looks right at him. Her blue eyes are big and tired behind her glasses, she’s silently begging for help to anyone who’s looking, but he just stares at her. She runs her hand through her brown hair, moving her eyes to another side of the room.

“Don’t you recognize her, Mr. Queen?” Waller questions him without ever taking her eyes off the girl.

“Should I?” He refutes, staring at the girl again, she looks so young and harmless, he can’t imagine what Waller wants with her.

“Are you sure you haven’t met in your future? Pay attention to her,” she advises him, and Oliver tries to picture her a few years older.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen her before. Who is she?”

“That’s not your concern. I just needed to check,” Waller says and moves to leave the room, expecting Oliver to follow her, “Now let’s talk about why you are here.”

“Our deal is finished, Waller, I don’t owe you anything,” he reminds her.

“And yet, you came here. We just need you to confirm some information for us and then we’ll be out of your way,” she tells him, going to her office, “I don’t need to remind you, Mr. Queen, how generous we were with you last time, we did what you wanted and allowed you to continue your life with no problem. Collaborate with me and we can keep it this way.”

Oliver knows that. He knows he pushed his luck by going to Waller and the best thing he can do now is just stay quiet. When Waller starts giving him information about the future and asking him to confirm, including many things that he didn’t add in his report to her, Oliver can’t shake the feeling that she has another source. And that it involves the girl he just saw.

He wonders if she’s from the future too. In the last few years, he tried to find out if there was anyone else like him, but gave up when he failed to find anyone who remembered the future. He thinks of her in that room, sweating and trembling, and Waller’s words about how they treated him. They won’t be as generous to her. He could try to save her, but this is not his life anymore.

When Waller lets him go a few hours later, he repeats to himself that his life is with his family, working at QC, with his old friends. He feels sorry for the girl, whoever she is, but he can’t risk it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand it starts! Yep, Oliver missed his chance on meeting Felicity, but don't worry, they will meet eventually. I will warn you all that it will take longer than you'll probably want though, but things need to happen before they can meet. 
> 
> Thank you for reading it so far and, please, tell me what you thought of it, comments make me so incredibly happy, you guys have no idea!!
> 
> xx


	3. The Second Life - Part 2

_May 18th, 2013_

As he sees Laurel walking down the aisle, Oliver wonders if this is really how his life was originally supposed to be. He smiles, looking to Tommy at his side, beaming as he sees the bride. When Laurel arrives at the altar, Tommy takes her hand, whispering something in her ear. They are both radiating happiness.

Just a few days before, it was the day Tommy died and, yet, Oliver is now best man at his wedding, something he never thought would happen. The year he came back from the island, the only one before Tommy died, was the worst. His secret and the relationship with Laurel only made him and Tommy spend their last moments together fighting. This time everything went right.

Laurel and he broke up over five years before, not because he cheated on her or because he died on a boat, but because they weren’t good for each other. They never were and now Oliver could say that for sure, a part of him always wondered if they’d work if it wasn’t for their troubled history. He and Laurel were not meant to be, not like Tommy and Laurel, who found their way to each other again, even without knowing anything about the past.

Quentin and Dinah hold hands and tear up while they see their oldest getting married, never imagining a life where this wasn’t their reality. Sara, in a bridesmaid dress next to Joanna, is smiling too. She and Laurel are not best friends, but they are getting closer since Sara finished college and moved back to Starling. Sitting in one of the front rows are Moira and Thea, both there as the closest Tommy has left for a family together with Oliver.

Oliver pays attention to Tommy and Laurel’s vows, but the entire time in his mind he wonders if they know how lucky they really are. Everyone in the wedding looks at a happy couple celebrating the beginning of their lives together, but Oliver can only see the couple who never had a chance. He sees Tommy under a falling building, Laurel with an arrow through her chest and many broken hearts. He knows what their future could look like and it just makes him appreciate their happiness even more.

He spends most of the party talking about his job. With he and Tommy both leading their family’s companies, the wedding is full of work people, contacts they have in common. Oliver doesn’t have much going on in his life besides his job; despite having finished college and shadowed people for as long as he could, he’s not a natural at this and needs to work hard to not let the company fail. It’s been years for him, but the memory of ruining the company and handing it over to Isabel Rochev is still fresh in his mind. Being a businessman is a lot more effort than being a vigilante ever was.

Having just escaped Ray Palmer – who he has no idea why Tommy would even invite - Oliver finds himself at the bar, wondering how much longer he’d have to stay there. The party is great, even if Tommy settled down and became much more work-focused since Malcolm’s disappearance, he still knows how to throw an event, Oliver suspects this is a reality in any timeline. Oliver, however, hasn’t been a party guy in way too long and faking it just becomes more tiresome every day.

“So, how are you doing?” Sara Lance materializes next to him, a drink in her hand and a lot less put-together than she was at the ceremony. “Tommy and Laurel, who could have imagined that ten years ago, right? I surely thought it’d be you there.”

Sara is not the first person to voice that, in fact, Moira has been making the same comment since she first heard about Tommy’s engagement. Not that Moira particularly liked Laurel, but she’s made clear how annoyed she is that Oliver hasn’t brought anyone for her to meet since he and Laurel broke up.

“He and Laurel are a much better fit,” Oliver answers her, not sure where Sara is going with that conversation.

“No doubt of that! You two weren’t great together, but I never thought you’d break up,” she continues, biting her lip, “You know, back when you two were together, I used to have this huge crush on you.”

_Oh, don’t I know!_ Oliver thinks of saying, but just takes a sip of his own drink instead. He looks at Sara and sees her searching eyes, she’s tipsy, but not enough to not know what she’s doing. She’s smiling freely at him and he knows that if he makes an advance she’s going to respond positively. For Sara, he’s a “what-if” that never happened, an old crush on her sister’s ex-boyfriend, something she wonders if it could happen in another world.

This is a Sara completely untouched by him. She may have tried to hit on her sister’s boyfriend, but she never fully betrayed Laurel’s trust. She was never lost at sea and tortured in unimaginable ways. This is not the Sara that would have understood Oliver in ways no one else could and still walk away because the darkness was too much for her. She’d think League of Assassins is the name of a video game and that time travel was science fiction. She’s young, careless and much different than Sara’s image Oliver has in his head. She’s a glimpse of the girl Sara was before it all happened, she’s what Sara should have been.

But when she smiles at him and starts a new subject, Oliver can only think that she might be the closest he has to a home. A Sara he doesn’t know at all, that had all those years to grow up without him ruining her life, but still Sara.

When Sara pulls him to the dance floor, Oliver doesn’t protest, he lets himself enjoy the moment. He thinks of how pretty she looks and he kisses her because he wants to. And if he thinks of different kisses, in a dark lair, full of scars and memories, he pushes the thought to the back of his mind, just like he does with everything else.

More than anything he’s done since he came back, being with Sara feels right in his heart. Maybe just like Tommy and Laurel are supposed to be together and get married, maybe this new Sara was always supposed to find her way to Oliver.

 

~~

 

_June 5th, 2016_

Amanda Waller is dead at her feet. A part of Felicity wants to throw up, but she’s paralyzed by fear. Since she started working for A.R.G.U.S, she’s been in a lot of dangerous situations but none like this. Shadowspire was supposed to have been defeated years ago, but somehow they managed to survive. Now their men are running around the room, aiming guns at everyone. Lyla is in front of her with hands up and a gun at her head, refusing to answer what they are asking.

The only thing going through Felicity’s head is that she’s not supposed to be here. At all. Accepting to work for A.R.G.U.S. was a mistake and she’s been paying the price. For years, she’s been a prisoner of Waller, doing what she was told, using her knowledge for A.R.G.U.S’ interests, knowing full well that there wasn’t anywhere she could go that Waller wouldn’t find her. She’s seen her intel be used to kill and torture people, and she stayed, knowing full well the consequences of running away. This is it, if she manages to survive this day, she’s going to find a way to get out of there for good.

What is A.R.G.U.S even doing with something as powerful as Rubicon? Waller always justified her actions by saying the agency was stopping things from getting in the wrong hands, but after years of working there, Felicity knows A.R.G.U.S is very far from being the “right hand”. But they are still better than Shadowspire.

When the front door opens to reveal Lyla’s husband and a man Felicity doesn’t know, she just throws herself on the floor and closes her eyes while they advance, exchanging bullets with Shadowspire. She hears screaming, but doesn’t look up to see who has been hit. The beating of her heart is as loud as the bullets flying around her. Her mind draws one blank after another and  she’s afraid she’ll pass out at any moment.

She doesn’t know how long she stays that way, but eventually the shooting dies and she feels a hand on her arm. Lyla is looking at her with worried eyes. Her shirt is bloody and Felicity is not sure if it’s Lyla’s or someone else’s.

“It’s over, Felicity, it’s okay,” she says, helping Felicity get up.

Her eyes wander across the room, seeing Waller’s dead body, still untouched. One Shadowspire mercenary seems dead as well, but the others are on the floor, immobilized. An A.R.G.U.S agent is on the floor, wounded, and Lyla’s husband is talking to him, helping to stop the bleeding.

“What do we do now?” Felicity asks.

“Now, you go home, there’s no reason for you to stay here,” Lyla says, “I was second in command, Felicity, this makes me the boss now. And I’m telling you you’re free to go,” she adds, noticing Felicity’s hesitation.

Felicity turns to leave when she realizes Lyla’s choice of words. They are friends and it’s no secret that Felicity’s work with A.R.G.U.S hasn’t been voluntary for a while, Lyla is giving her a chance to leave. When she looks back to her friend, Lyla gives her a smile and a nod. Felicity is not sure Lyla really has the authority to release her, but she takes the cue anyway. This is the chance she’s been waiting for what feels like forever.

As soon as she steps into her apartment, Felicity starts packing. She knows the best way to be safe is to disappear for a while. A.R.G.U.S might follow her, but she’s not going back there.

She’s finally free.

 

~~

 

_October 24th, 2018_

Oliver’s head aches from all the files he has spent the day reading. His financial manager keeps trying to convince him to go through with an investment he spent the last couple of years avoiding; they’ve been at it for about one hour now, but it feels like a lot longer. It’s already late, but unfortunately a CEO’s job doesn’t finish at 6pm. Something Oliver knows all too well.

He sighs, figuring he’ll have to text Sara to let her know he’ll be home late again. He promised her he would try to work less to make time for them. He’s so not ready to have this argument again with his girlfriend. The two of them have been together for over five years now, and while Oliver loves her very dearly, he’s starting to fear their relationship is coming to an end after the constant fights they’ve been having. He asks for a coffee break and gets his phone only to find Sara already bailed on him. Her text said there was an emergency at the hospital and she had to stay after hours to help out.

Of course, there was an emergency, she is an ER doctor, there are _always_ emergencies. He knows he can’t say anything when he, too, will be late. He’s about to answer with an “okay” when he receives a text from Tommy:

_CALL ME. My father is here!_

He only stops to reread that sentence once again, making sure it is really Tommy, before he’s calling his friend, trying to reassure himself that this has to be a mistake. Malcolm can’t be there, he’s dead. It’s been over ten years without any sign from Malcolm whatsoever, it makes absolutely no sense that he was alive all this time but just now decided to come back. Besides, he had a deal with Waller, a deal that she was _interested_ in maintaining.

What’s changed?

“Oliver, thank God! I’m freaking out!” Tommy answers the phone.

He’s yelling and Oliver is not sure it’s excitement or fear he’s hearing.

“Malcolm just showed up in my office! Says he’s been away on a spiritual journey, can you believe this shit? Ten fucking years and the guy just comes back?!”

“Malcolm is back?” Oliver repeats, still trying to understand what’s happening, “He’s with you, right now?”

“No, I’m at home, I told him I needed some time to understand this. I thought he was dead…” Tommy talks quickly, clearly still trying to come to terms to this new fact. “He wants to have dinner with me tomorrow. With Laurel and Becky. Says he’s sorry he missed my wedding and wants to be part of the family.”

Oliver freezes at the image of Malcolm with little Rebecca, that guy has no business in her life. He thinks of Thea, who has no idea Malcolm is her biological father and is very happy this way, having finished college and working with fashion design.  Malcolm was never supposed to come back and ruin everyone’s happiness.

“I don’t think this is a good idea, Tommy, he’s been gone a long time and that explanation makes no sense,” he says.

He can’t let this happen. Malcolm needs to go.

“I know… But, Ollie, it’s my dad. If your father suddenly showed up, wouldn’t you want to see him again, too?” Tommy asks.

Oliver wants to scream that Malcolm and Robert are not at all on the same level, but he knows Tommy won’t understand that. He never got to know about Malcolm’s genocidal tendencies, all Tommy knew was he was a bad father and, since his death, Tommy was prone to focus on the few good days he had with his father, before his mother died, instead of how abusive Malcolm had been all his life. Oliver can’t really blame him for that, he sighs, knowing Tommy has already decided to give his father a chance.

“You’re right. Just… I’ll come over too,” Oliver suggests, “I’ll feel better if I’m there, Tommy. I don’t want you to get hurt,” he doesn’t want any of his family to get hurt.

“That’s an amazing idea, Ollie, you’re family too, of course you should come. Let Sara into the loop, see if she’s not on-call tomorrow!”

The only Sara he wants by his side for this dinner is the one who wouldn’t hesitate on killing Malcolm Merlyn, but he just agrees, knowing there’s no excuse for not bringing his girlfriend to her sister’s house. His mind goes over all the possibilities he has at the moment: he can try to get to Malcolm before this dinner, but he has no guarantee of how this would go.

Oliver looks to his own body, immediately regretting his lack of training. Most people would consider him an athletic person, he goes to the gym regularly and still trains from time to time, but it’s difficult to find time for all that and, after ten years without any real danger, Oliver has let himself relax. Clearly, a mistake he doesn’t have time to fix now.

A part of him wishes Malcolm has changed, but he can’t afford to believe so. Not when it comes to Malcolm Merlyn. Oliver has lost count of how many chances he has given Malcolm in his other life. He had many opportunities to kill Malcolm and didn’t because he was Thea’s father or because he could be useful. In the end, his choices always came back to haunt him. Malcolm betrayed him too many times, each time doing something worse than the previous. Oliver is done making the same mistake. He might not know how Malcolm managed to escape from A.R.G.U.S, but it doesn’t matter - his death is a lot more than ten years overdue.

“What’s even going on with you tonight?” Sara asks for what must be the tenth time in the last twenty-four hours.

Her annoyed voice lets Oliver know she’s as tired of asking that as he is of hearing it.

“Sure, don’t tell me, don’t know what I expected,” she mumbles, her voice lower but not enough to stop Oliver from listening it.

Oliver’s relationship with old-Sara had always been easy, they understood each other, they were always at the same page. This is not true for this Sara, not most of the time, anyway. At first it was easy and fun, Sara has an unexpected lightness that brought out something similar in Oliver. She had a sarcastic sense of humor, liked going out and having an active life and she genuinely enjoyed spending time with him. But she could not stand when Oliver got closed off.

Sara doesn’t usually push him, in the beginning she didn’t ask him about his sudden nightmares, his mood changes or wrong memories. After five years, though, she thinks he should trust her by now and that’s becoming clearer every day. Sara can’t understand why he acts this way, and Oliver can’t explain.

How can he tell her he is living for the second time without sounding crazy? How can he explain all the trauma he’s been through when, in this reality, it hasn’t happened? How can he tell that every day that passes she looks less like old-Sara and sometimes he looks at her and his heart aches, because she’s the woman Sara never got to be, and while he loves her and tries to appreciate what they have here, his thoughts always come back to the other life?

“I just don’t like the idea of Malcolm being back,” he tells her and it’s the  closest he can get to the truth. They are almost at Tommy’s house, arriving for dinner, and there’s no way Oliver’s discomfort at meeting Malcolm won’t be noticed by Sara.

“Yeah, on that we can agree,” she says, “I hardly even met the guy before he disappeared, but from the stories I’ve heard, he’s not a good company. He might be Tommy’s father, but if he tries to mess with my sister or my niece, I won’t hesitate on using my anatomy knowledge to hurt him.”

She sounds so much like the other Sara that Oliver stops to look at her, The determination and rage are transparent, but her expression changes a second later, laughing and pushing the thought away.

Oliver just nods, resolving himself that Malcolm is going to be dead before he can hurt anyone else.

Oliver has to breathe a few times before ringing the doorbell, preparing himself for a long evening. Sara gives him an encouraging look and puts a fake smile on her face right as the front door opens. Laurel greets them with a nervous smile, a warning that Malcolm is already there. Becky comes running to talk to them as soon as she hears her aunt’s voice and quickly grabs Sara by her hand and takes her to play in the living room. The two-year-old little girl completely adores her only aunt and loves to monopolize her attention whenever they see each other.

“Oliver,” Malcolm says as Oliver and Laurel find him and Tommy in the dining room, “I’m glad you could come today,” his voice is cold as always.

Malcolm looks at Oliver with the same annoying smile he always wore around. He stares at Oliver like he knows exactly what happened, but it’s hard to know this is actually the case or if Malcolm is just being himself. He extends a hand to greet Oliver, his handshake is strong and, in the back of his mind, Oliver wonders if Malcolm is trying to test his strength.

“I had to see for myself if you were really back and Tommy wasn’t just messing around,” Oliver forces a laugh, and the other three adults do the same.

It’s been less than one minute since Oliver arrived, but he feels the heavy atmosphere around the house. Not even the sound of Sara playing with Becky in the background manages to break the tension, if anything just makes it more obvious that no one is feeling comfortable there.

“So, Malcolm, where have you been in the last ten years?” Oliver says, as they all sit in the dining table. Laurel and Tommy exchange a look that make Oliver know they’ve both been avoiding the subject.

“It’s a very long story,” he answers with a smile, “I planned on going on a trip, but actually ended up on an island,” the mention of an island makes Oliver freeze, but Malcolm continues before he can react.

“Very interesting place, I learned a lot of things there, made me rethink a lot of my choices. Unfortunately, I couldn’t contact anyone in the beginning. It’s a very peculiar place… ARGUS.”

Malcolm is staring directly at Oliver and he knows this is no coincidence. He’s not sure if the island is just an excuse or if Malcolm knows anything, but the ARGUS mention is clearly a warning.

“Argus? Never heard of it,” Tommy says bitterly, “Or of a place where you couldn’t even send a letter to let us know you were alive.”

“They have strict laws, Thomas,” Malcolm tells, but doesn’t take his eyes off Oliver, “They didn’t let me speak to outsiders. It took me a long time before I could come back,” he says, the anger finally showing up in his voice, though he quickly hides it with a smile, “I knew you would take care of things while I was away, son.”

“Tommy was doing very well without you,” Laurel interferes, and Tommy squeezes her arm, predicting she had a lot to say to Malcolm.

“I’ll serve dinner,” Tommy says, standing up and taking Laurel with him to the kitchen.

Oliver stares at Malcolm, trying to assess if he presents any danger in the moment. Even though Malcolm has many years on him, he seems to be fit and Oliver is not in his best physical form. And even if he could defeat Malcolm, there’s no way he could do it in the middle of Tommy’s house, with everyone right in the next room.

“Calm down, Oliver, tonight I just want to have a nice dinner with my family,” Malcolm says, “We’ll have time to _discuss_ our pending business later.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Malcolm,” he tries to play dumb.

“Uncle Ollie!” As if on cue, Rebecca enters the room, followed by Sara. The little girl runs straight to Oliver, taking him by the hand and talks about whatever she and Sara were playing before.

Oliver talks to Becky, entertaining the girl while Sara helps Laurel and Tommy serve the food. The whole time, Malcolm watches them and every time Oliver looks back at him, Malcolm just smiles innocently, pretending their conversation never happened. He spends the entire dinner tense, eyes on Malcolm the entire time, his body ready to take Rebecca out of there in the slightest sign of danger.

Malcolm doesn’t say anything else though. Laurel ends the dinner saying they need to get Becky ready for bed. They all leave at the same time, Malcolm says a polite goodbye to everyone and goes the opposite direction from where Oliver and Sara left the car.

“Could you just relax now?” Sara says when they enter their car, “You looked like a statue back there, like Malcolm would attack us at any moment. I know there is something off with the guy, but it’s not like he’s going to hurt his own family.”

Oliver can only think of Tommy dying during the Undertaking. Of everything that Malcolm did against Thea. Against all of them. He just hums in response, though, trying to hide his tension from Sara.

 

~~

 

_November 12th, 2018_

“Felicity?” someone calls her, making her shift her attention from the work she’s doing.

She looks up from the computer to see a young man staring at her. She quickly recognizes him as the new detective who just got transferred from Starling City, she doesn’t remember his name exactly. She smiles at him, waiting for him to ask for her help at something.

“Detective Malone, right?” she asks, trying to recall what he’s called. “Do you need me?”

“You can just call me Billy,” he answers and smiles at her. “I just wanted to tell you the other guys told me we are going out to drink to welcome me here, and I was wondering if you’d like to join us?” he looks a little nervous as he asks and Felicity can’t help finding it cute.

She’s been in Hub City for over a year now and it’s been a few months since she started working for the Police Department, but she rarely interacts with her coworkers. Mostly she justifies it as her not being a cop and a part of them, but she knows she didn’t try to connect to anyone much since she left A.R.G.U.S.

In the first year after she got out, she was deeply scared they would find her. Even with Amanda Waller dead, other people could know about what she knew, it was not safe being anywhere near A.R.G.U.S base. But, a little after she moved to Hub City, Lyla found her and assured Felicity that A.R.G.U.S would leave her alone. Lyla is now the new director and she has no intention on keeping Felicity captive. If she had, Felicity would have been caught a long time before.

Even then, Felicity had some difficulty trying to go back to normal. She hardly has any friends since she started this new life, the closest being Lyla and John, and they live in a whole other city. She had a few flings in her life, but she couldn’t get out much when A.R.G.U.S was keeping track of her and then she was too nervous about new people to date anyone. She hasn’t dated anyone seriously since Mike and that was a whole life ago.

“So, you’re in?” Billy says, when she doesn’t answer him. “The guys told me you don’t go out much, but…”

“You know what, Billy? I’d love to go,” she smiles at him Billy looks so happy with her answer, it makes her feel like she made the right decision. She doesn’t know much about him except he’s new in town and a cop, but he seems sweet and is interested in her. He’s just a normal person and maybe that’s exactly what she needs. What’s the point of having a new life if she’s not living at all?

By the end of the night, she’s laughing with the cops and remembering what it's like to have fun. Billy is close to her the entire time, when she gets up to leave, he walks her to a cab and kisses her cheek. Felicity looks in his eyes and realizes just how much she needs not to be alone. She closes the space between them and brings him close to a real kiss. Billy seems surprised by her sudden move, but doesn’t take long to respond.

He ends up getting in the cab with her and, for the first night in years, Felicity doesn’t feel lonely when she sleeps at night.

 

~~

 

_November 23th, 2018_

It takes Malcolm almost a month to act. To say Oliver is caught unprepared is a lie, he hasn’t relaxed since he heard Malcolm was back in town. He has trained every day, pushing his limits so he can be at the same level as Malcolm. But, part of him, wonders if this is not just an overreaction.

Tommy says Malcolm sounds normal, lets his father in the house and welcomes him back at Merlyn Global. Laurel doesn’t trust Malcolm, she’s cold to him and refuses to let him spend too much time with her daughter, no matter how insistent he is. But she tolerates him for Tommy’s benefit. There’s no proof he was ever lying, even the police investigated Malcolm’s disappearance and return, and in the end, didn’t find any evidence of criminal activity.

Sara thinks Oliver’s behavior to Malcolm is unnecessary. Even if he sucks, maybe he is just trying to restart his life, that’s what she tells him whenever Oliver starts complaining. But Oliver knows better. He’s seen what Malcolm is capable of and knows intimately that he’s not back just to reunite with his son. If there was any doubt in his head, Malcolm’s comments to him would confirm it. So, Oliver waits and prepares himself.

He’s leaving a long day of work when he notices someone waiting for him near his car. Malcolm is wearing his old league uniform, bow and arrow and everything. Oliver doesn’t need to check the parking lot to know they are alone. It’s after midnight and he’s the last one to leave QC, he curses under his breath as he realizes how stupid he was. There’s no security in the parking lot at this time, there are cameras, of course, but Malcolm is not new at this and would have deactivated them.

Oliver throws his bag on the floor, not even waiting for Malcolm to react. He throws himself in his enemy’s direction, but he knows this is a lost fight. He’s been working the entire day, he’s tired, his sleep schedule is a mess between working, training and stressing about when would Malcolm make a move, and he doesn’t even have any weapon. The only advantage Oliver has is determination.

Malcolm seems surprised by Oliver’s actions, but doesn’t take too long to react. He obviously underestimated the younger man, not knowing anything about his past, but he still has the upper hand in this fight. It’s clear Malcolm doesn’t expect Oliver to last as long as he does, or to stand up after being arrowed in the chest. But Oliver doesn’t stop, he manages to hit Malcolm multiple times but not enough to put him down.

Oliver is thrown back to his vigilante days. To Malcolm as the Dark Archer, defeating him over and over again. Oliver had promised himself not to let this happen again, but here he is. He got another chance at life, he tried to do everything right and, yet, he’s still fighting for his life in a parking lot.

Unconsciousness doesn’t come as a surprise, it was just a matter of time before Malcolm beats him. From what it seems, Malcolm doesn’t want him dead, so Oliver doesn’t even try to fight after he gets hit in the head, letting his enemy just knock him out. He just wants to get over with it already, he just wants to live a normal life.

When he wakes up again, Oliver is in a dark, dirty lair, his hands are chained to a wall and Malcolm has a knife running through his chest. His completely scarless chest, without any indication of he’s been through, a reminder that this is really another life, now his skin will be marked again. Perhaps there was no point in avoiding fate.

“You’re awake,” Malcolm’s voice brings him back to reality. “Now, Oliver, I don’t want to hurt you more than I have to. We’re practically family, after all,” Malcolm says and Oliver can’t help letting a huff of laughter at the irony. “I’ve learned a lot about you in the last few years, Oliver, and I think we can help each other.”

“Yeah? Then free me and we can talk about it,” Oliver answers, pointing to his chains with his head.

“Sorry, not that soon. First, you’re going tell me what I want.”

“I’m not going to tell you anything until let me out of here.”

“So you can try to run away and sell me out to A.R.G.U.S again? How well did that turn out for you last time?” Malcolm laughs and sticks the knife in Oliver’s side, “Did you think it was fun spending years in A.R.G.U.S custody? But I got out and you’re lucky I didn’t immediately kill you after coming back.”

“You’re crazy, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Oliver screams, despite the pain.

“Don’t try to pretend, Oliver, I told you I know all about you,” Malcolm says. “A.R.G.U.S was unstable after Waller’s death and you’d be surprised how easily people were bought out… I saw your file there, Oliver, I know what you’ve told them. Everything.”

“What do you want, Malcolm?”

“Tell me what you know about the League,” when Oliver doesn’t answer, Malcolm moves the knife. “You’ve made me lose ten years of my life, I’m not going to waste time with you. If you collaborate, you can get out of here alive .I’m going to get my answers. Make your choice.”

“Go to hell.”

Oliver is expecting the stab after that, what he doesn’t expect is for Malcolm to move the knife, stabbing his leg multiple times. When he stops and finally looks back to Oliver’s face, Malcolm’s eyes are filled with hatred. Malcolm has always been a crazy murderer, but it’s different now, he doesn’t seem to have much self-control. For the first time in years, Oliver is actually scared of Malcolm.

“TELL ME!” Malcolm screams in Oliver’s face. “Tell me how I become Ra’s al Ghul! You know the future, I deserve to know too!”

Oliver tries to recall what he said to A.R.G.U.S, but it’s been years and the facts are all mixed up in his head. He knows he tried to leave his role – and his friends – out of the narrative the most he could, so A.R.G.U.S didn’t go after them. This means Malcolm has no idea that the only reason he was ever Ra’s was because of him.

“You kill the current Ra’s,” he answers, his voice is almost a whisper, talking hurts more than he thought it would.

“How?” He yells, but Oliver remains silent. He’s too tired to think of a compelling lie. “Do you need more incentive, Oliver? Should I go get Sara? Or Thea? Or maybe I’ll see if Moira is up for a boat trip…” Malcolm says with a laugh. “You know how easily I got rid of your father, do you really think I couldn’t do it with the rest of your family?”

“You’ll have to kill me first.”

“Don’t worry, I will. Just after you see me do everything you tried to avoid. I will kill Ra’s, destroy this entire city and your family, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me!”

He is about to stab Oliver once more when an arrow flies into Malcolm’s back. From the shadows, Nyssa al Ghul appears, shooting arrows into Malcolm without even blinking. Despite being caught by surprise, Malcolm quickly advances towards her with only his knife in hand. The fight that follows doesn’t last much, Malcolm might be good enough to beat Oliver in this life, but he’s no match to Nyssa. Soon enough, she has his knife in her hand and is reciting words to him in Arabic. In a quick move, she slices his throat, leaving him for dead in the floor.

“Nyssa,” Oliver whispers when she moves in his direction, “Please…”

“I will not kill you today, Oliver Queen,” she interrupts him before he can even complete the sentence, helping him get out of the chains. “But I cannot let you leave before I know the information Malcolm Merlyn was after.”

“Please, I’ll tell you, but I need to stop this bleeding…” Oliver says, analyzing his own wounds and knowing he would need to go to a hospital for those.

“This is not my problem,” she answers, arching her eyebrows.

Despite her claims not to care, Nyssa goes through Oliver’s things – thrown on a chair – and gets his phone. She types something in it and then puts it back in the same place, walking towards Oliver once more.

“Help is on the way. Now tell me, why did Malcolm Merlyn believe you knew how to kill my father?”

Oliver sighs, trying to focus on staying awake and not passing out from the blood loss. He could just lie to Nyssa, but he feels too tired to come up with anything believable and, out of everyone, Nyssa is the least dangerous person to know the truth. She is already the heir to the demon and doesn’t have much use to any information he can give her.

Not seeing any way out of it, Oliver just tells the truth. Nyssa listens to the narrative without interrupting, doesn’t question when he says he came back through time, nor seems surprised when he confesses he killed her father in his past life.

“You gave the ring to Malcolm Merlyn?” Nyssa talks for the first time since Oliver started. “Perhaps I should have let him kill you after all.”

Oliver doesn’t have a chance to answer and explain his decision, because the next thing he knows there are steps approaching. He tries to get up and be ready to defend himself, but Nyssa gestures him to stop and, a few seconds later, Sara appears in his line of vision, carrying a medical kit with her.

“Oliver! Oh my god!” she screams as she sees him and runs into his direction, stopping when she notices Malcolm’s body on the floor, “Is that… Malcolm?! Is he dead?”

“Do not touch him,” Nyssa instructs and Sara just nods, going towards Oliver.

“What the fuck is going on?!” Sara whispers, kneeling next to Oliver and examining his wounds, “You text me saying it’s an emergency and that I should bring a first aid kit? Why didn’t you just call 911?”

Oliver just rolls his eyes and looks at Nyssa, he knows better than to even ask her why she would call Sara. This probably made some kind of sense in the assassin’s mind.

“Dr. Lance can help with your wounds,” Nyssa explains, “Now that Merlyn is eliminated, I assume you won’t interfere in League’s business again?”

“As long as you stay away from Starling,” he answers. “I told you, I don’t want this life.”

“You cannot run from fate, Oliver Queen,” she says with a smile, “Maybe we will meet again, after all.”

“Goodbye, Nyssa.”

“Nyssa?” Sara says, finally turning to the woman and paying attention, “Don’t I know you from the hospital?”

Oliver looks confused at both of them, but Nyssa just smiles in Sara’s direction.

“Sara Lance,” she whispers, “May fate bring us together again.”

Nyssa turns and runs away before any of them can reply. Sara is still looking to where the other woman disappeared, her eyebrows are up and she’s clearly still confused, but there’s a smile forming in her lips. Oliver wonders if a part of them feel what they were to each other in the other life, there is no way for them to know, but the way Sara stares at the empty space Nyssa stood before makes him think there’s something there.

“So… What the fuck was that?” Sara asks, turning back to Oliver and starting to take care of his bleeding.

“My past catching up to me,” he whispers, more to himself than to Sara.

 

~~

 

_December 31st, 2020._

“You’re ready to go, honey?” Billy asks Felicity, calling her from the first floor.

Felicity is staring at the mirror, trying to get her dress right. She stops to look at her belly, putting her hand in it, it’s too early to be showing, but she can’t stop feeling different. _She’s_ _pregnant._ How weird is that? She has lived for so long without never even having a pregnancy scare and now here she was. She hasn’t told Billy yet - she has just found out herself one day earlier - but she knows he’ll be happy about it. He has talked about marriage and kids recently, and even though he hasn’t proposed yet, Felicity knows he’s been thinking about it.

She never really thought of having children. It wasn’t an unpleasant idea for her, but something she didn’t think she was ready for in her first life, and then she was seventeen again and suddenly had many years before she had to decide anything.

This is not how she imagined she would feel. She’s already 32 biologically and has lived even more years than that, so maybe she’s ready to be a mom. She loves Billy, maybe love is not how she imagined it would be, but it’s calm and satisfying. She knows he won’t run away and will be a good father. Sometimes she thinks something is missing in her life, and she can’t stop wondering if a baby is not it.

Felicity can see a little baby in her arms and, even though she feels a little nervous at the prospect, it makes her happy.

“Felicity, why are you taking so long?” Billy calls out, tired of waiting and Felicity runs to get her purse.

She looks at her phone, seeing that a lot of people from work are already at the party they are attending. Lyla sent her a message wishing her a happy new year, sending her a picture of her youngest baby, who’d be celebrating her first year soon. She wonders if she can talk to Billy about moving to Starling, even though they both like Hub City just fine, it’s not the best city to raise a child and, honestly, she likes the idea of her baby growing up with Lyla and John’s children. For a moment, Felicity closes her eyes and she can imagine her life perfectly, she can see being happy with Billy, watching their child grow, being a family together.

This is as far in the future as she got last time, but she’s confident. She can really see her future happening now and she’s anxious for it.

 

~~

Oliver drinks one more glass of champagne when he sees Tommy and Laurel enter the the room. He didn’t really expect Tommy to come to QC’s annual New Year’s Eve party, he hasn’t bothered to come in the last couple of years. He sees his old friend going to greet Moira and suspects his mom convinced Tommy to come. It wouldn’t be surprising, she thinks a Merlyn being there will be good for the company, which would be good, considering the difficulties QC’s been going through under Oliver’s time as CEO. Even after the whole Malcolm mess, Tommy managed to get Merlyn Global unaffected, proving to be a much better businessman than Oliver ever was.

“How are you doing, Ollie?” Laurel asks him, showing up in his side.

“I’m good,” he answers, “I didn’t get to congratulate you,” he continues, pointing to her visibly pregnant belly.

Laurel smiles but it’s a sad one. She’s at least five months pregnant and this is how Oliver is finding out. He was the first one Tommy told when they found out they were expecting Rebecca, and now in months no one bothered to tell him.

“I’m sorry, Ollie,” she says, putting her hand in his arm, “You know he doesn’t blame you for Malcolm, but he just doesn’t understand.”

Oliver just nods, knowing that very well. After Sara found him there, he had no option but to tell her a version of the truth. He couldn’t tell Sara about the time traveling, but he talked about Malcolm murdering his dad and how he wanted information from Oliver now. While Oliver was in the hospital, both Laurel and Tommy heard about what happened. Tommy was shocked by his father’s death and Oliver not telling him the truth during all these years, and ended up distancing himself more and more from his best friend.

“How is Sara?” he asks, trying to move on from the subject.

“She’s fine. She’s traveling with her new girlfriend,” Laurel answers with a smile and gets her phone to show him a picture of her sister.

When he sees Sara posing with a very smiley Nyssa al Ghul, Oliver can’t help laughing. He and Sara broke up while he was still in the hospital getting his wounds treated; he has no idea how she and Nyssa even met again, but it sounds about right.

From the other side of the room, Tommy gestures hi to Oliver and calls his wife. Laurel says goodbye and leaves him alone once more. He drinks one more sip and just watches all the people around the manor.

His mom is holding hands with Walter, talking to some investors. In the corner of the room, he sees Thea arriving with a guy and has to blink twice to make sure he’s seeing right. She’s with Roy. He hasn’t seen Roy since… Since he died. Sighing, Oliver goes upstairs. It’s still a couple hours from midnight and he knows he won’t be able to hide forever, but at that moment he just needs to be alone.

 

~~

 

2021 arrives for both Oliver and Felicity in different ways.

Felicity is happy while she denies the glass of wine Billy brings to her, but doesn’t say anything when he arches his eyebrows in question. She doesn’t want to call a lot of attention that the night, and even though most people at the party are her friends from work, she feels telling Billy should be something private. She smiles, imagining telling him when they wake up the next day. The first news of the year.

Oliver pours a glass of whiskey and sees his family in the room, celebrating the new year. It’s a lot different from the last 2020 New Year’s Eve he was at. He’s not alone, there are a lot of people around him. His sister has a profession she loves and somehow found Roy again. His mom is alive and happy. Tommy has a beautiful family. But he still feels disconnected from all of them. Oliver makes a promise to try to get close to them again in the next year.

Of course, neither of them get to see much more than a few hours of 2021.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the second life ends! I know there wasn't any Olicity in this chapter, but I can tell you they definitely talk to each other in the next life.
> 
> Because the fic happens in a really big space of time and I didn't want to write *everything* that happen in their lives, because it would take like twenty chapters for olicity to meet if I did, I decided to structure it like this, with these small bits of scenes with time jumps. I know this is not everyone's cup of tea, so I'm warning the rest of the fic will continue to be this way. Some years will have more scenes or more lenghty ones depending on what happens.
> 
> Because of that a lot of what happens is not actually in the text (like what the fuck was Nyssa doing there? How did she know Sara?), if there is interest I might write some "missing scenes" after I'm done posting the fic. Or you can also just ask me and I'll answer what happened off screen.
> 
> Thank you so much for everyone who left kudos and comments so far, they make me so happy! If you can take five seconds of your life, please do tell me what you thought of this chapter and the fic so far, feedback is super important to me!  
> xx


	4. The Third Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for miscarriage (kind of) in this chapter, be careful!

_ January 13th, 2007. _

Felicity opens her eyes suddenly, strangely cold. She’s laying on her side, but it’s not Billy she sees next to her even though she fell asleep in his arms the night before. She’s in a single bed, in her college dorm. Her old roommate, Jenny, is sleeping in another bed near her, lightly snoring. Felicity gets up in a second, her heart beating faster than ever. She immediately goes to her phone, confirming what she already knew: she’s in the past again.

Her eyes start tearing up, but Felicity doesn’t stop, she opens her laptop, seeing the date. She goes through her room a million times, finding everything to be exactly the way it was. When she checks herself in a mirror, she sees the purple locks she hadn’t wore in so many years. 

She can’t breathe. 

Why is this happening again? How?

“Felicity? Why are you up?” Jenny calls for her, slowly walking into the bathroom, eyes still half closed. “Are you crying?”

Felicity can’t answer, she’s consumed by the tears. She tries to control her breathing but it’s useless, the air is not reaching her lungs and she feels herself starting to black out.  She feels her legs numbing and she slides to the floor, not managing to stay up much longer, her hands are shaking and she feels she’s not in control of her body anymore. She hears Jenny talking to her, but she can’t understand what she’s saying.

Is she dying? Is she just going crazy?

“Just breathe with me, honey. One, two, three…” Jenny says and Felicity tries to focus on her friend’s voice.

After what seems like an eternity, Felicity manages to calm down enough to stop crying. Her breathing is still unstable, but her tremors stopped and she feels gaining control again.

“What happened?” Jenny asks, seeing Felicity is more stable. “Did you have a nightmare or something?”

“Or something,” Felicity answers. “I… need to go”, she says, getting up and going through her closet, putting a coat over her pajamas and changing to jeans.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Jenny calls after her, sounding worried, but Felicity is already at the door, waving as she leaves without saying anything else.

It’s incredibly cold outside and the coat she has on is not enough, but she refuses to go back. The fresh air helps her breathe and walking around the campus makes her calmer. It’s a Saturday and early enough that most people are sleeping, but the sun is starting to come out and Felicity decides to just sit on a bench, letting the sun warm her up a little.

She’s back at MIT. For the third time now. It was weird going back in time the first time, but she never imagined it would happen again. What are the odds? Even more impossible than randomly time traveling just once. When she was finally in a good place in her life, with Billy and the baby…

Suddenly, it hits her. What does this mean for her baby? Without thinking, she walks towards the nearest drug store, just stopping when she has a pregnancy test in her hand. She found herself in the same situation just a few days before - or a few years forward, depending on the point of view - but now her mind is in a completely different state now.

Could she even be pregnant if she’s never been with Billy in this life? She has seen herself, she knows her body is of seventeen years-old her, so how would she be pregnant now? But… how could she not? Refusing to overthink it, she buys the test and goes back to her dorm.

Fortunately, Jenny is sleeping again and doesn’t notice when she comes in. Felicity just locks herself in the bathroom, wanting to know as soon as she could. The two minutes she needs to wait before the result are the longest of her life. 

How would she tell Billy she was pregnant with his child if he never met her? He would never believe her. Would she able to raise a baby alone? 

Oh god, she’d technically be a teen mom. She never thought this would be her life.

Felicity is spiraling into her thoughts when her phone pings warning her and she sees the result. 

Negative. She isn’t pregnant, not anymore.

She’s paralyzed for a second before the tears start rolling down her cheek. She can only think of how happy she was the day before, of the image of the child she had made up in her mind and how it would never be real. Her baby is dead. Like everything else she built in her life, her baby had just disappeared from her womb, like it never existed in the first place. She has never felt so empty inside - not in any of her lives. It’s like something was taken out of her and the urge to check her body for scars is not at all as irrational as it sounds.

What if her baby had been born? It would have just disappeared too. It already hurts so much, too much - a lot more than she could have ever imagined - to know she’s not pregnant anymore, and she had only been sure she was pregnant for a little over a day. She can’t even imagine how it’d be like if her child had disappeared after being born. 

The realization of what this means for her hits her then, she can never be a mom. Not if she keeps going back in time. Any children she had would just disappear again and again.

She feels like screaming. She can feel the scream building up inside her, pressing its way through her throat, strangling her and she just wants to let it out. But instead she just sits on the floor of the bathroom, the tears quietly falling, as her body had given up on reacting, her mind going numb. 

She has already lived many years without having a child and she knows she can do it. She can live a fulfilling life without a baby. But she feels her choice being ripped away from her and that hurts a lot more than she thought she would. She can feel the entire future she dreamed of, the little baby in her arms and the love in her heart, all of that fades away. Her dreams are as dead as any fetus she used to have in her. 

Leaving her with just a hole inside of her.

 

~~

  


Oliver wakes up feeling like he’s hungover. His head aches and he wonders if he really had that much to drink the day before. He looks around him, noticing he’s in his room in the manor and frowns. He vaguely remembers going back home the day before, but maybe he accepted his mother’s offer of just sleeping in his old room instead of driving so late. He knows he drank the night before, but something doesn’t feel right.

He goes down the stairs, still sleepy. He can hear Raisa’s voice coming from the kitchen and he wonders what she’s even doing there. He’d thought she was on vacation… He is about to ask her as he steps into the kitchen and freezes. 

In front of Raisa, sitting in the kitchen table, a tiny Thea eats her breakfast.

“Mister Oliver, good morning!”, Raisa says with a smile and turns to the stove, starting to make his breakfast. Thea says something, but her mouth is still full and Oliver wouldn’t be able to understand even if he was paying attention, and he isn’t.

“What day is it?” he asks, flabbergasted.

“Saturday,” Thea answers with a smile, “Duh, how can you not know that?”

“I meant what date,” he insists.

“January 13th ,” Raisa tells him, handing him a plate full of pancakes.

“2007,” Thea adds with a laugh, “Why are you so weird, Ollie? Is this an important date?” she asks, frowning, “Did you promise Laurel to do something today? Because you said you would take me to ice-skating today!” Thea complains.

“I… did. Don’t worry, Speedy, I don’t have anything else to do today,” Oliver quickly answers and approaches her, kissing her head. “I just need to take a shower first,” he says, leaving the kitchen.

“What about your pancakes?!” Thea yells after him, but Oliver pretends not to hear, running upstairs.

He’s going to his room so he can actually absorb this new information when he hears a voice he hasn’t heard in too long, his father’s. Before he can think, he follows the voice to his father’s home office. 

The door is closed, as usual, but Robert is speaking so loudly that Oliver can hear everything that is said. It’s business talk and Robert is clearly annoyed with whoever he’s speaking to, yelling something about incompetence and losing his entire morning.

Oliver is so shocked he doesn’t even notice when his father hangs up the phone and opens the door, muttering about how he’d have to fire some people.

“Oliver! What are you doing standing there? Did you want to talk to me?” Robert says, jumping a little when he sees his son and looking at him expectantly.

“No… I just heard you from the hallway and came to see what was happening,” Oliver replies,  improvising.

“Oh, you heard that. You need to start preparing yourself for this business, son. Being CEO is not an easy job, you wouldn’t believe the amount of stupidity in people…” Robert starts saying and Oliver just nods, slowly backing away to go to his room.

He traveled back in time  _ again _ ? 

What was even happening? Is the universe trying to mess with his head or what? 

Oliver couldn’t believe he was back at 2007. Maybe this was his wish of getting closer to the people he loved becoming true. His father was alive and this time he wouldn’t fail him. His mind goes to Malcolm, he wasn’t strong enough to kill Malcolm last time, only surviving because of Nyssa’s stalking.

Oliver thought that not being the Arrow and taking his place as QC’s CEO was the right way to honor his father and be the person he was supposed to be. But it didn’t work that way. His father ended up dead, he was so stressed and busy with work that he barely saw his mother and sister. The city didn’t suffer from any terrorist attack, but it was not safe either. Every time he saw the news about the violence and corruption in Starling, he turned away, knowing it wasn’t any of his business anymore.

He can’t live through all of that again. He needs to spend time with his family, to protect the people like he used to. He needs to find a way to kill Malcolm and not lose Tommy friendship. He needs to find out how to live a full life before he’s sent back again. 

 

~~

  


_ June 10th, 2007 _

Felicity is laying on her bed when she hears the door opening and Donna’s voice calling her. She quickly looks at her watch, realizing she hasn’t noticed the time passing and it’s nighttime already. There are a lot of pictures and family albums spread in her bed, and for a moment she thinks of hiding them before her mom sees anything, but decides against it. She doesn’t have the energy.

“Hey, baby, what are you doing?” Donna asks, going to her and sitting in the bed too, “Awn, I love those pictures!” She smiles, taking one of Felicity as a baby to watch closer.

Felicity doesn’t say anything, just nods. She got home only the day before and found herself unable to resist getting her albums, she was never one to look at her own baby pictures, not in the first life and especially not in the last one, it was all so distant. But now, she looks at her past and sees the life she will never have. Having a child, growing old with someone, actually having lasting relationships. She sighs, thinking of all she’s lost.

She remembers searching for Billy in this life, seeing him in the police academy. Billy’s lost eyes when she went up to him and tried to start a conversation, he was nice, as always, but he had no idea who she was. His usual look of love and adoration was replaced with nothing but a reminder that their history was erased. Felicity felt completely lonely.

The only stable people in her life are her mom and Jenny. She even tried getting closer to her roommate this time, but it was of no help. No matter how many lives she lives, she and Jenny will never be more than casual friends.

“What’s wrong, honey?” Donna asks, waking Felicity from her daydream. “Talk to me, Felicity, I’m here for you.”

Felicity can never tell her mom about her real issues – how can she explain the other lives without sounding crazy? But, she realizes as she closes the distance between them and hugs her mom, Donna doesn’t need to know everything to comfort her. They might never been very close, but that’s something Felicity can change. One thing she can’t deny, no matter what happens, her mother is there for her. Maybe she’ll never be able to be there for someone the same way, but she stills has a family and a life. 

 

~~

  


_ August 29th, 2007. _

“Ollie, can you take me to the mall tomorrow?” Thea asks him over dinner, “Stacy is having a party in the weekend before the classes start and I  _ need _ a new dress!”

Oliver just rolls his eyes at the question, he never liked going to the mall with Thea and that hasn’t changed, but he knows she’ll end up convincing him.

“Why don’t you go with mom?” he responds instead of agreeing immediately.

“I can’t, dear,” Moira jumps in the conversation, turning her head away from the phone for a minute. “Have you heard from your father, Oliver?”

Oliver freezes in his seat, grabbing his phone to see if Robert tried to contact him, even if it was unlikely. He saw his father that same day, before he left his summer internship at QC to go home. Robert was there. 

“He must be working late today,” he says, trying not to show how nervous he is.

“His secretary said he already left…” Moira whispers, more to herself than to Oliver, not seeing what this statement does to her son.

Robert is alive. He has not stepped into the gambit this time, Oliver made sure to convince his father not to go China and instead send some employees. He made sure Robert stayed safe the entire day and that Malcolm didn’t approach him. Oliver just needs a few days… And then everything will be over. His father is going to live this time. He has to.

The rest of the dinner is tense, even Thea picks up on it, asking what is going on. Oliver tries to distract his sister, not wanting to worry her, but he’s itching to leave, pick up his bow, and search for his father. He’s got a plan on how to kill Malcolm, he’s been training for months and he’s almost sure he’ll be able to beat Malcolm this time.

Oliver is leaving his room, about to go to his new lair, when the doorbell rings. His heart jumps a second, but he doesn’t stop, going downstairs just in time to see Raisa calling his mother, a worried look in her face. From the stairs, he can see two policemen in the door. He doesn’t need to hear what they are saying to know what happened. He failed again, Malcolm was faster than him and his father paid the price.

He doesn’t go out that night, he stays with Moira and Thea, instead. 

But he doesn’t forget.

It’s not even a week after Robert’s death when Oliver puts on his suit and goes after Malcolm. There is no fight. Malcolm is not expecting him, he has no reason to. It’s late at night and he’s in his own house. Oliver is angry and doesn’t hesitate, he shoot the arrow straight to Malcolm’s chest and then gets close enough to slice his throat. Under ten minutes and Malcolm is dead by his feet. 

It won’t bring Robert back, but hell if it isn’t satisfying.

 

~~

 

_ May 15th, 2009. _

For the third time, Felicity graduates in MIT. She wishes this was as good as it sounds. She doesn’t have three degrees, in fact she has less degrees now than she ever had. She doesn’t even have her masters this time, she was too unmotivated to try for one. Felicity spent the last two years debating whether to continue college, what was the point? After going through most of the same classes for two times already, there was little she was interested in.

She tried new classes, she tried making new friends. But nothing ever worked. Everything in this life feels completely pointless. What once had been her dream now was a nightmare she could never escape. Doomed to repeat college forever, never making any real change.

“Congratulations, Felicity!” Jenny says with a smile, pulling Felicity for a hug.

Jenny is actually there for her boyfriend, who is graduating with Felicity. A boyfriend who will break up with her in a few hours if Felicity is not wrong, but she has given up trying to warn Jenny about it. Maybe some things are just meant to happen, Felicity thinks with a sad sigh. She wishes she could go to Jenny and tell her she will live through it, that she’ll meet the love of her life, get married one day and live a perfect life, at least from what she’s seen from her posts on Facebook.

When Jenny’s current boyfriend approaches them, Felicity fakes a smile. Chad, a perfect frat boy, comes up and gives Jenny a kiss on her cheek, like he is not already planning the break up in his head. Felicity never liked him, especially during her first life when Chad made sure to make comments about her goth style every time he saw her. She may have dyed her hair sooner this time, but Chad remained – and will always remain – an asshole.

“So, Felicity, I heard you got some great job offer,” Chad says, the sentence is polite enough but Chad somehow makes it sound like an insult.

“Yeah, I guess. I have a meeting with Kord Industries next week that sound really promising,” she answers, trying to think of an excuse to go away.

“Not bad,” Chad says and Felicity can’t stop herself from rolling her eyes.

“Felicity is the smartest person I know! I’m telling you, Chad, she’s going to be the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs,” Jenny chimes in, “Just don’t forget your friends when you open Smoak Industries!”

Felicity just laughs at that thought and waves them goodbye, going away to search for Donna. She knows Jenny was not serious, but what if this could happen? She’s not only a genius with a lot more experience than any other recent graduate, she knows the future. She knows technology most people haven’t even started thinking of yet.

She can just go work for Kord or whatever other company she decides this time, she has done that already and knows she can rise quickly if she wants. But there’s something about having her own company that attracts Felicity. She never had this opportunity before, not with trying to be discreet after Cooper and then working for ARGUS.

The entire point of working with ARGUS was making some change in the world, using her knowledge to do good. Of course, this didn’t come out as she planned, with Amanda keeping her against her will and using Felicity’s information to do terrible things. 

In her mind, the idea starts forming. Her own company, where she could mold change in the way she wanted, the way she envisioned.

Maybe she is fated to repeat these years for eternity, maybe she will never be able to have a child, but she can still create things. She can still do something new, something that was completely hers.

 

~~

  


_ October 24th _ _ , 2012 _

“Won’t Walter be joining us for dinner?” Oliver asks, as he greets his mother and sister in a fancy restaurant.

It had taken Oliver some time to get used to the idea of his mom and Walter being together again, especially since last time it hadn’t happened until late in his life, but this time he got the chance to spend time with all of them together and he could see how good he was for his family. Oliver was at their wedding just a few months before and he was finally accepting seeing Walter in the place that used to be his father’s.

“He’s got an important meeting with Smoak Tech,” Moira answers, not looking up from the menu she’s staring at.

“We’ve been doing a lot of business with them lately,” Oliver muses out loud.

He is not Queen Consolidated’s CEO, not this time, but he still works in the company. Both Moira and Walter occupy higher places in QC than him, and even though they think Oliver will eventually assume his place as CEO, Oliver knows better. He doesn’t love his current job, managing finances and business proposals, but it gives him enough time to patrol the city at night and still maintain a position in the family’s business.

“They’ve been growing a lot recently,” Moira continues, “Maybe you could use Ms. Smoak as inspiration, Thea,” she directs the conversation to her younger daughter, who is currently looking at her phone. “She’s not even 25 yet and is already CEO of her own company.”

“The only inspiration she gives me is her wardrobe,” Thea looks up from her phone to join them, “I saw an interview with her and I just loved her clothes.”

Oliver frowns at this talk. He had never heard of any Smoak Tech before a year ago, when QC  started doing business with them. Since then the name was just showing up more and more, the quick growth of the company was so astonishing that every businessperson wanted to know their secret.

“It feels like she’s come out of nowhere,” he finds himself saying, “Who is she?”

“Someone we should pay attention to,” Moira says. “Sometimes it feels like she’s years ahead of all of us.”

Oliver freezes when he hears that. It can’t be a coincidence. He would understand not having heard of her during his first life, he spent years on an island and then he was so busy being the Arrow, but he would surely have heard something when he was CEO. He should at least know the name of the company. How did she change her life so much?

“Maybe you should meet her, Ollie,” Thea says with a grin, “You have been single for so long and she’s so pretty.”

As if to prove her point, Thea gives him her phone, showing him the picture of a woman. She’s young, blonde and has a bright pink lipstick on, but Oliver recognizes her. He sees her in another life, sweating in an ARGUS room, her eyes screaming for help. Immediately, the dots start to connect in his head.

She’s like him. She’s seen the future, this is how she’s so good at business, she truly knows tendencies before they even start.

Moira and Thea change subject and start talking about Thea’s grades in school, but Oliver can’t focus on what they are saying. He googles about her: Felicity Smoak.

He needs to find her.

 

~~

  


_ February 15th, 2013. _

“Are you sure you have to go today?” Lena purrs next to Felicity, pulling her in her arms and kissing Felicity’s shoulder. “You know, when I came here for Valentine's day, I was kinda expecting to spend time with you…”

“I’m sorry, but I really can’t skip this meeting. Queen Consolidated has been insisting for a meeting in person for months, I can’t postpone it again,” Felicity gives a light kiss in Lena’s lips and gets up, going to her closet to get ready, “Maybe I can stop in Metropolis to see you when I’m back? And then I can make it up to you.”

“I’ll hold you on that,” Lena smiles and turns back to her pillow, closing her eyes.

Felicity locks herself in her bathroom, knowing she doesn’t have much time before she needs to get a flight to Starling City. Being CEO of her own company is a lot more work than any other job Felicity ever had before. She stills gets to play with technology and exercise her brain, but she had to learn a lot about running a business and there’s hardly any time left for fun.

Being with Lena is a great distraction, but now she thinks they might have started getting too serious. The whole point of dating a woman who lived in another city and had a life as busy as hers was to not get too involved. Felicity has no intention of getting attached to anyone in this life.

When she and Lena met a couple years before, Felicity was just starting to really manage her work life and Lena had just came back from England to work in LexCorp. They had hit it off immediately and it was not long before they recognized a mutual attraction. They got together whenever they were in the same town and exchanged a few messages and calls – personal and work-related – during their time apart. Easy and safe.

Remembering Lena’s smile when she arrived the day before with flowers in her hands, Felicity realizes maybe it’s not that easy anymore. She might be able to control her feelings a little, but she can’t control others’ feelings. Felicity sighs as she finishes dressing up and sees Lena sound asleep in her bed. She’s going to have to do something about it once she’s done in Starling.

Despite being a business partner of Queen Consolidated for years, this is the first time she’ll be personally going to Starling City. She has her laptop with her during the trip, studying the proposals and seeing what’s so urgent that needed her in person. Her assistant said they were insistent on her being the one to visit and not one of her employees. She had a dinner scheduled with Walter Steele, whom she had met only once before, and a meeting in the afternoon with one Oliver Queen. Where does she know this name from?

He’s the one who wanted to see her, but she doesn’t remember meeting him. The name isn’t strange… It doesn’t take her too long to know everything she needs to know about him. Graduated in Starling University after dropping three other colleges, immediately started working for his family company and hadn’t moved up the corporate ladder a lot since then. His father, Robert Queen, had been murdered when Oliver was still in college, in some kind of mugging. Opening the news article about Robert’s murder Felicity is hit by a sense of déjà vu.

It’s a shame she can’t research things from her other lives. Something about it doesn’t feel right, but Felicity can’t put her finger on it. She never paid much attention to what was happening in Starling, it was always such a chaotic city… Except it’s not really. Not lately.

“Is that your doing, Oliver Queen?” she mutters to herself, getting more curious about what was happening.

She ends up hacking Oliver Queen’s computer but she doesn’t feel guilty about it at all, especially when she finds out he’s been doing his own search on her. He even tried to hack her, but it was such a rudimentary try that it almost makes Felicity pity him. Of one thing she’s sure, he’s curious about her. He’s done a surprisingly deep search of her for someone who’s only looking into a business partner. Felicity just can’t understand why.

Felicity is already on her hotel when she finally finds something on Oliver: A.R.G.U.S. She’s not expecting the connection, not at all. Oliver Queen had been looking into  A.R.G.U.S.’ database to see if anything would come up about her. As far as she could tell, he doesn’t have any connection to A.R.G.U.S. himself. There’s no reason for him to. Just like there’s no reason for him to think she has any either.

She might be jumping to conclusions, but there is only one explanation Felicity can think for all of that. 

He had time traveled too.

Felicity walks into Queen Consolidated completely unsure of what to expect of this meeting. Does Oliver Queen know about her? Should she say anything? What if she’s wrong? She had searched for others and hadn’t find anything. Where was him all that time? And why them? She had so many questions.

She’s ten minutes early, but the doorman lets her go directly to Oliver’s office. He doesn’t have an assistant and his door is already open, so she just walks in. He’s staring at a paper in his hands, making some notes with a red pen. She hasn’t even seen his face yet but she can see he looks a lot better in person than in pictures.

“Oliver Queen?” she says, making him turn to her. “Hi, I’m Felicity Smoak.”

Oliver smiles at her and Felicity can’t help smiling back. His blue eyes are staring right at her, analyzing her face. Somehow, Felicity knows her theory is right.

“I heard you were looking for me,” she says.

She searched for him too. For too long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand they finally meet! The fic will mostly focus on Oliver and Felicity's relationship from now on, as well as their individual paths!
> 
> What did you guys think of this chapter? I had my doubts about the whole pregnancy storyline, but it was necessary for me to get Felicity where I needed her to be, emotionally. 
> 
> Please, tell me your thoughts! I literally die of happiness and get revived every time someone leaves a comment, so.. Leave a comment if you want to make me happy, ignore if you want me to DIE lmao. Joking, no pressure, but I DO appreciate comments very much and they absolutely give me life. 
> 
> xx


	5. The Third Life - Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to Anita Yellowflicker, whose birthday is today (in my part of the world, it still is, at least), go read her amazing fics and leave a comment as a birthday present to her! But read this chapter first (or after) pls

_ February 15th, 2013. _

Oliver is not sure what he expected from Felicity Smoak when he scheduled a meeting, mostly he just wanted to look her in the eyes, be sure she really is who he thought she was. He didn’t even plan on telling her about the future, to check if he was right about his theory. 

Felicity, though, didn’t have any problem bringing it up.

“How did you even manage to escape my software?” Felicity mutters to him a couple hours later.

She’s sitting next to him on the sofa of his office, a cup of coffee in her hands and her mind going a thousand miles a minute. Both of them have so many questions, Oliver quickly learns that he is also the first person Felicity encounters who remembers the other years.

“What software?”

“I constructed a software to find possible people like us. Anyone who just had too much luck, searched things that haven’t happened yet. It took me a long time to perfect it and for nothing! Not one result,” she complains. “I was the only one my program could find.”

“I didn’t use much of my knowledge, I guess. Not online, at least.”

“Not even google the name of a movie that turns out only comes out in three years? Happens to me so much! You have no idea how many spoilers I’ve accidently given to people.”

“I’m not much of a movie guy,” he admits. “I’ve seen movies, of course, but I’ve always too busy.”

“Oh my god, how can you live for three times and somehow not have time to watch movies? What have you been doing, Oliver Queen?”

He wonders how can he explain the hell that was his first life or why he dedicated himself so much to work last time. He knows she’s not made the same decisions.

“I just wanted to right my wrongs,” Oliver finds himself saying to her, using the same phrase that haunted him for years, “I don’t really understand what happened to us, but I was lucky to be given a chance to make things better, to be the person I was supposed to be.”

“Lucky?” She asks almost like she’s shocked to hear it, “That’s a nice way to see it… But I don’t feel lucky. I liked the person I was, I just wanted to continue my life.”

Felicity is not looking at him anymore, her lips pressed into a thin line and her eyes staring blankly  through the window. Oliver doesn’t know her well enough to ask what she meant, so he just nods. There’s something about Felicity that makes him want to know more, to open up to her. Maybe that’s just because she’s the only person he ever talked about the past with.

But Felicity starts talking about something and suddenly smiles, and Oliver thinks that maybe that’s not it at all. Maybe it’s just  _ her _ who has this effect over him.

 

~~

 

_ October 26th, 2013 _

“Can you believe I didn’t have any Big Belly Burger at all during my entire first life?” Felicity says, taking a bite of her food, “What a waste!”

Oliver, sitting on the other side of the table, just hums in response, somehow managing to smile even with his mouth full. In any other of her lives, Felicity would have been easily flustered by his pretty face. She’s mature enough now to put these feelings aside, they’ve only known each other for a few months, but it’s clear they make a great team. 

“I’ve added your ideas to the software, but there’s no result,” Felicity comments, picking up some files from her purse, “I’m searching every database possible, a lot of words, and I swear the closest I’ve gotten was pure fiction,” she continues, with an eye roll, “I’ve found some stories about people who claim to have time traveled, but they are completely different from our case. I’m not saying they are lying, because they could say the same about us, but they definitely don’t match us. Maybe I need to find a different analysis, I’m pretty sure my math is right, but maybe there’s something I’m not seeing…” she sighs, finally stopping to take a breath, and sees Oliver is staring at her with an eyebrow up.

“I doubt there’s anything wrong with your math,” he says, reaching a hand to touch hers. “Felicity, you’re remarkable.”

“Thank you for remarking on it,” she can’t help but blush at his comment. “I just don’t understand… Why us?” she changes subject. Oliver doesn’t reply, not knowing the answer. “I hate mysteries,” she mutters.

They spent most of the last eight months trying to come up with answers, Felicity made sure she traveled at least once a month to meet with Oliver so they could brainstorm ideas. Oliver even went to interview some people they thought could have information, but it all led to dead ends. Maybe it’s time to give up. Truth is there hasn’t been any change in months and there isn’t anything else to search, but if it’s truly over… What excuse will she use to talk to Oliver? He’s the first person she’s met who can remember what the other lives were like and she doesn’t want to lose this connection.

She’s thinking about it when she notices Oliver’s attention has shifted to the back of the restaurant. Felicity looks back and just sees a pretty waitress talking to a customer. She’s about to tease Oliver about being interested in the waitress when she recognizes the customer.

“Is that John?” she says out loud, startling Oliver, “Sorry, I think he used to be married to someone I knew.”

“You know Diggle?” Oliver asks, “Of course, you knew Lyla from A.R.G.U.S.,” he is talking more to himself than to her, but Felicity listens anyway.

“How do you know that?” she realizes, “I never mentioned A.R.G.U.S to you.”

Felicity is only confused for a few seconds before the pieces start to make sense in her head. The fact that Oliver currently looks like a puppy who just got caught doing something wrong only confirms to Felicity that he kept things from her. When they met, Oliver said she had just caught his attention because Smoak Tech was being too successful. It made sense to her, so she never thought to question it.

“You knew about A.R.G.U.S. before we even met,” she says, remembering, “How could you know about me? Did you work for them? Did you help them threaten me?”

“No,” Oliver replies quickly, almost begging her with his eyes, “I encountered with ARGUS a few times during my first life,” he starts explaining, “Last time… I went to them with information. I thought they could help.”

“A.R.G.U.S.’ kind of help…” she spits in anger to him, even if she knows it’s not fair. She had started working for A.R.G.U.S. willingly, she can’t fault him for trusting them.

“Yeah, but I needed something from them at the time and thought it was my best chance. They called me a few years later, I didn’t understand exactly why… Until I saw you.”

Felicity freezes at that. He saw her in the other life. She frowns, trying to remember ever seeing Oliver, but she thinks it’d be hard to forget.

“You were in a room, being held by Waller. They wanted to know if we had ever met, if your information could be trusted. I realized you had also time traveled,” he confessed. “But I didn’t do anything about it. I was so focused on keeping my life normal, that I left you there. I’m so sorry, Felicity.”

She has to stop a little to absorb this information. She can’t say it doesn’t hurt that Oliver left her there, knowing she was not free to go. Her years in A.R.G.U.S. were some of the worst she experienced. She managed to leave and rebuild her life later, but those were years lost, having to do whatever Amanda Waller ordered.

“It’s okay,” she says at last, “You didn’t know me.”

Oliver doesn’t seem fully convinced she forgave him, but Felicity doesn’t say anything else. It’ll take her a little longer to digest it, but, as ironic as it sounds, she can’t change the past. Not in this case, at least.

John Diggle passes their booth without saying a word, and Felicity is reminded of how this conversation even started. Oliver notices it too, his guilty look still in place, and Felicity wonders if that’s just about her or about Diggle now.

“So, considering he didn’t even say hi, I’m assuming you knew John from another life too?” She asks, wanting to go back to their usual conversation.

“First life,” he answers, “He was my best friend,” he sighs and starts fidgeting in his seat.

“And he doesn’t know you in this one. Yikes,” she says. She understands how much it hurts to be unknown by people you cared about so much before. “You tried befriending him again?”

“We… We were not in a good place, when I came back,” he tells her, his head in a completely different space. “We had a big fight and then spent years without talking to each other,” Oliver runs a hand through his face and Felicity has to control herself not to try to comfort him. “My first life was a mess.”

Oliver doesn’t talk much about his first life. Neither does she, for that matter, they both talk a lot about the concept, about time traveling, about the friends they currently have and what is like being back, but they hardly ever talked about what their past lives had been. She knows he was QC’s CEO last time and she had just assumed the first had been more of the same.

“Can I show you something?” he asks suddenly, Felicity just nods and then he’s up, pulling her by her hand.

She has no idea where they are going, and when they stop by some abandoned factory, she’s even more confused. Oliver doesn’t say anything, but he’s fidgeting with his fingers the way he always does when he’s nervous, so Felicity can tell whatever he wants to show her - it’s important. 

They go through the empty place until they get to a locked door, Oliver opens it with a four-digit code and Felicity is about to comment on his terrible security when it opens and her curiosity peaks. As soon as Oliver turns the lights on, she understands his tension. In the room, she can see the arrows spread in a table, next to a vigilante suit. She might have never lived in Starling, but she’s heard about its vigilantes.

“I assume this is not your Halloween costume,” she says with a grin and hears Oliver laughing next to her. Her eyes are still in the room.

There is a terrible computer setup, not surprising given the security, but it’s a lot worse than someone with as much money as him can have. There is a lot of gym equipment, whose purpose Felicity is not ashamed to admit she doesn’t know.

Now that she sees it, everything about Oliver makes sense. She blames not realizing it sooner on living somewhere else. She can remember now that there were less vigilantes in her last life – they were still there, but Starling City was never really associated with them, which should’ve told her something.

“You were shipwrecked,” she says after a long period of silence, a long-lost memory finally completing the puzzle.

“Yeah. When I woke up in the past, I thought I was meant to live the life I was supposed to have if I’d never been shipwrecked,” he tells her, “Not putting on the hood. Working in Queen Consolidated… And I tried. I dedicated myself to it,” he explains, “But it was not enough.”

“So you are trying again now,” she concludes, nodding.

She had seen the rise of vigilantes during her first life, she’s always admired it. She’s always wanted to do something to help others, first with ARGUS and then with her own economic power via her company. But this is different.

“Okay,” she says suddenly, turning to him with a smile, “We’re going to need to update your system, immediately, because it’s hurting me just to stand so close. But I’m in!’

Oliver frowns at her and for a moment she thinks he’s going to say something, but he just smiles and holds out his his hand to her. Felicity puts her hand in his and shakes it.  In this moment, she feels her life is finally on the right track.

 

~~

 

_ July 12th 2014. _

“So, what are we doing here?” Oliver asks as he and Felicity step into an apartment building.

Felicity arrived in the city just a few hours before and sent him an ominous text telling him to meet her at this address. He hurried all the way from QC to get there only to find Felicity chatting up  the doorman with a smile on her face.

“What do you think of it?” she says when they get into the elevator. When Oliver raises his eyebrows, not understanding what she means, Felicity opens her purse and takes a key, waving it in front of him. “I’m officially a resident of Starling City!”

She’s been talking about moving since she decided to join his vigilante activities. However, it’s not easy to just up and move when she had her entire company and life set somewhere else. She built new offices of Smoak Tech in the city and spent the last few months contracting people, but Oliver thought it would take her at least a couple more months until she could afford to move.

“What about Smoak Tech?” he asks, not understanding how Felicity would manage that. “You are just going to leave National City like that?”

“I’ll still have to go there often, obviously,” she says, opening her apartment, “But I left someone I trust in charge of its office. I’m expanding, it’s good for the company,” she completes, “Smoak Tech is my baby, I’m taking care of it. I’m just going to do it from here.”

Oliver enters her apartment expecting for it to be empty, but he is surprised to see a fully furnished loft. It fits Felicity to a tee. It’s modern, with a lot of colors and technology. He has never been in her home – he only went to National City to visit her once, and they spend the entire time in her office – but this is exactly how he pictured it’d be.

“I’m really happy you’re going to live here, Felicity,” Oliver tells her when he realizes she’s been waiting for a reaction. “Thea is going to be really excited, too.”

“Oh, she is. I’ve told her already,” she says, taking her shoes off and going to her sofa, “I bet Moira is going to love it too,” she ironizes and rolls her eyes.

While it only took meeting Felicity once for Thea to start adoring her, his mom’s reaction was not the same. Moira saw Felicity as a threat, both to the company and to Oliver. She was happy when they were simply business partners, but as soon as Felicity started planning to move to Starling, something shifted in Moira. It didn’t help that Oliver sold the old factory to Felicity – who argued it was very stupid to leave it empty and keep working as the Arrow there.

“She just needs to get to know you,” Oliver replies, knowing his mom’s reaction was out of fear.

“She thinks I’m going to seduce you and steal Queen Consolidated,” Felicity says in disbelief. “Like Smoak Tech wasn’t already amazing on its own.”

Oliver doesn’t reply to that because he knows it’s the truth. His mom is fully convinced he and Felicity are sleeping together, and the fact that both Thea and Tommy keep supporting her theory doesn’t help. It’s not like he can say they’ve bonded over time traveling and now are partners in vigilante work.

He thought about telling his family about it. He knows his mom and Thea were accepting of it in his first life, but that was when he spent time on the island. They would never understand it now.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter what other people think, I’m in Starling now to stay,” she affirms with certainty, “I’ve moved a lot during my life – well, lives – but I think I might have finally found my home.”

Felicity looks over her balcony as she says that, smiling to the city. Oliver looks at her and can’t help thinking he might have found his home too.

 

~~

 

_ September 24 _ _ th _ _ , 2015. _

“Eek, this is going to leave a horrible scar,” Felicity complains as she sutures Oliver’s back. “If only there was a way to avoid getting hurt and marking your skin.”

“My skin has been a lot more scarred before,” he replies, knowing full well this is not what she meant.

“Yeah, yeah, your chest used to be full of scars, I know the story,” she teases him, “You also used to work with a team who was there to have your back.”

“I have a team. I have you,” Oliver says like it’s the simplest thing in the world and Felicity just sighs.

They’ve been having this argument for months now. Oliver is sure he doesn’t want to bring anyone else into this life, not the people he knew in his previous life and no other people either. Felicity, personally, thinks he’s being ridiculous. He didn’t have any problem bringing  _ her _ into it, she pointed out, but Oliver argues she invited herself to be a part of it.

“I mean someone who is in the field with you and you know that,” she insists, “Why are you being so stubborn about this now?”

“You know how it ended in my first life! I don’t want a repeat,” he says, getting up before Felicity is even done cleaning the wound and putting his shirt back. “Felicity, we make a good team, why change it?”

“Because you are going to end up dead this way, Oliver! And I’m not about to let this happen on my watch!”

Felicity closes the distance between them, looking at him straight in his eyes. In the last couple of years, Oliver became a lot more than someone she could speak to about her other lives, he’s become her best friend. And she doesn’t want to find out what happens if he dies in this life. Maybe he’d just wake up in the next one, but Felicity is not so sure and refuses to let him bet with his life.

“Please, Oliver,” she begs him and she can see Oliver’s resolve begin to fade. He sighs and Felicity smiles, “I’ve been talking to John…” she adds a bit hesitantly, dreading his reaction to this news.

“What?! Since when?” He shouts, taking a step back from her.

“He was my friend too, okay?!” She explains, “I am allowed to have other friends. Just because you two had this big fight in you other life doesn’t mean it has to happen again. And he is  _ perfect _ for this. He’s been almost exploding to do something about the city, especially since JJ was born. And-”

“Okay,” Oliver interrupts her, touching her shoulder to stop her from talking.

“Okay? Like that? I still have a list of pros of John joining us!”

Oliver just shoots her a look and she smiles in response. It’ll be good for Oliver to have Digg there, and she doesn’t mean just for his safety. Of course, that’s important for her, but she’s spent years listening to Oliver talk about how he and John used to be best friends and she knows they deserve to have this again. Oliver misses his friends a lot more than he can admit to himself.

“If you’re in the mood, I’ve also found some other really good candidates…”

“You’re pushing your luck,” he says flatly, but she can see he’s not really annoyed.

“I had to try,” she shrugs and decides to bring it back up after they’ve talked to John.

She thinks she may try to convince Tommy or Thea to help her with that. Although both know about Oliver being the Arrow now, they are not part of the team, and Oliver insists on not letting them even be near the Foundry too much. A part of Felicity thinks it’s going to take her a lifetime to convince him this is not necessary.

One step at a time. 

 

~~

 

_ April 22nd, 2016 _

“I have an announcement to make!” Thea declares during dinner, calling the attention of everyone in the table. 

Oliver feels his mother coughing in the other side of the table, and he knows where her mind is going. Tommy laughs and his side and Roy gets immediately red, but Thea just rolls her eyes, which makes Oliver more relaxed. Dinner with his family became a tradition in this life that he’s really proud of. Almost every week he tries to take a day to go back to the Manor and spend some hours with them. It’s not always easy to afford nights when the crime is in a high, but he makes it a priority and, soon, so does his sister and his mom. Tommy and Laurel sometimes join them and, lately, Roy has been a constant on Thea’s side. He tried to convince Felicity to come, but she usually makes up some excuse, still not being comfortable in his mom’s house, even after all those years.  

“A few of you may have already heard me talking about it, but I’m sure it’ll come as a surprise to others,” she starts, trying to delay the revelation, but her delight is clear in her voice, she seems to be bursting from excitement. “I’m opening a business! Everything is already in motion. Walter and Felicity helped me with the finances so I bought this little store Downtown and another one in the Glades, and they are going to be open for business in about a month.”

Oliver is taken by surprise, but he’s not sure why. Thea had worked as a fashion designer in the last life and ended up opening a store as well, but it wasn’t that soon. She’s still 21 and hasn’t even gone to college, telling her mom she needed to take a few years “for herself” before studying. He knew Thea was planning something, she had been busy lately and he caught her having some secretive talks with Felicity lately. He thought Felicity had been trying to bring Thea to Team Arrow, but apparently his sister had her own plans. 

“Thea, this is definitely a surprise to me,” Moira says, seeing to finally shake the shock out of her, “But I’m really proud of you.”

Other people congratulate Thea and soon she starts telling them all she’s been keeping a secret for months. Aside her excitement, it’s really clear that Thea’s plan is solid. She has investment and is a lot more organized than Oliver ever was. Tommy makes a joke about how he’s going to make her Merlyn Global’s CEO and Laurel is clearly impressed. 

“It’s going to be amazing, Speedy,” he tells her, when they say goodbye, kissing her head, “I’m really glad you found something that makes you so happy.”

“Well, it’s not saving lives,” she says in a whisper, so her mom can’t hear, “But it’s good. You inspired me, Ollie. I’m doing my best to have an ethical production and hire people from the Glades. It’s not a direct impact, but it can make a difference too,” she explains in a fast pace, her eyes bright and Oliver can see how proud she is of what she’s doing. 

Thea might attribute it to him being an inspiration, but he knows it’s always been in her sister. She suffered so much during their first life, but she still cared about others. She’s always been better than him, even if she didn’t see it that way.

 

~~

 

_ August 18th, 2017 _

“Thank you so much for helping us with this, Felicity,” John says, even though he has already thanked her at least three other times this very same day. 

Felicity doesn’t even bother to answer again, too busy looking at JJ, who is currently sitting on her lap, playing some kid-game in a tablet. Felicity usually doesn’t let anyone near her tech, but she quickly found out she’s a pushover for little kids. When she first befriended John and found out Lyla was pregnant, she the hole in her heart opening again. Seeing them all as a family reminded her she could never have that and it hurt a lot, those days she needed some alone time to be able to cry and mourn the life she lost. But, in the end, John and Lyla were her friends and it wasn’t their fault, so she insisted on getting past her pain. And JJ was such an adorable child, it didn’t take too long before he won her over. 

“Lyla is already on her way, everything went according to the plan,” Diggle informed her, kneeling to get his son from Felicity’s arms and kissing JJ’s head, holding him close. 

Lyla had got into a mess within A.R.G.U.S.’, being targeted by some people after power. Oliver and the team had been ready to help, but they were too busy trying to stop a mob war from happening to be any help. Lyla and John had to go after some useful information and let Felicity taking care of JJ in the meanwhile, coordinating both operations at the same time and trying to keep her entire family safe.

“I’m gonna text Oliver to know everything went well,” Felicity says, getting her phone. 

“He’s going to be upset that he wasn’t included,” Diggle notes with a smile, and Felicity rolls her eyes.

“He can’t be in two places at the same time and we got it handled, didn’t we?”

John doesn’t say anything else, focusing his attention back to his son and Felicity uses this time to update Oliver. 

“Do you know when I knew Lyla and I were meant to each other?” Diggle says suddenly and Felicity turns back her attention to him, not understanding where this was coming from. “The first day I woke up next to her after we got back to each other. It was like getting home after a long time away.”

“You two are perfect,” Felicity comments.

“Nah, we’re not. We have our issues. I loved Lyla since the first second I saw her, she felt like she walked off a dream. But we didn’t get divorced for no reason. Being in a relationship is complicated, we had fights and getting divorced made sense at that time. But I wish we hadn’t lost so much time separated instead of working through things together.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you’re my friend,” John says like it explains, “And so is Oliver. I’ve seen you both do that dance for years, looking at each other but never making a move. I’ve seen you in relationships, Felicity, and you never seen as happy as when you’re next to him. I don’t know what’s holding you off, but don’t waste time, Felicity.”

She blushes at that comment and decides not to answer. Diggle’s not wrong and she knows she’s holding herself off, deliberately avoiding anything romantic with Oliver. But it’s not that easy with her. She has felt her time being robbed from her and being given in a way she never asked for. She might be wasting time, but she’d rather waste than have it and lose it again. 

Felicity sees John and Lyla meeting again, life after life, getting through divorces just so they can get together and, more than anything, she wants this security, the certainty. But she can’t be sure. 

 

~~

 

_ May 16th, 2018 _

“Surprise!” the crowd yells and Oliver takes a step back, taking a few seconds to register what is happening.

He puts a smile on his face, but he can’t deny that the first emotion that runs through him is disappointment. When Felicity invited him to dinner on his birthday, he was expecting to actually spend the night just with her, somewhat a rarity these days, with Team Arrow being quite full. Instead he is greeted by all of his friends and family. They all look so happy to surprise him on his birthday that he leaves his disappointment behind and decides to enjoy this party.

Thea is the first to run to him, hugging him and saying she’ll give him a present later. His mother and Walter are right behind her, which surprises Oliver a little. Even though his mom seems to have accepted Felicity as a constant in his life, they are still far from being friends. He wonders how Felicity managed to convince Moira to replace Oliver’s usual birthday dinner at the manor for a surprise party at her place. There’s no doubt in his mind that Thea and Walter – who adore Felicity – might have helped her make this happen.

John and Lyla both come to Oliver next, wishing him a happy birthday. Oliver can’t thank Felicity enough for having insisted on bringing John into their life. John has only known him for less than two years, but it didn’t take long before their friendship got back to what it used to be in Oliver’s first life. It was only then that Oliver realized just how much he has missed his friends.

He spent his last life with Sara, Tommy and Laurel and, while he loved them very much, he was still missing something. He missed his found family of vigilantes - all the friends he had lost along the way.

For too long, he has been scared that bringing them back meant sentencing them to the same awful end of their first life. But now, he watches the Diggles attending his party, both as his friends. JJ playing with Tommy’s son under Laurel’s careful watch. Roy and Rene – who never had the chance to meet in his first life – aretalking to Felicity’s friend, Curtis. Most importantly, they all seem perfectly content to be there for Oliver.

“Hey,” Felicity nudges him after he’s finished greeting Tommy. “Happy birthday!”

She pulls him in for a hug and Oliver lets himself melt into it, lingering for longer than necessary. When he breaks the hug, Felicity is smiling at him. Her lips are painted red, her bright eyes are looking directly at his. Her hand is still touching his arm and Oliver has to fight back a shiver. More than anything, he wants to close the space between them and kiss her. He wants to send everyone away and spend the rest of the night discovering the taste of her mouth and the feeling of her skin under his.

“Do you like it?” She breaks the silence, looking around and biting her lips. “I know you don’t like parties and you usually spend with your family, but…”

“I  _ am _ spending time with my family,” he replies, taking her hand in his and looking to her eyes, “I love it, Felicity.”

_ I love you _ is what he doesn’t say. What he can’t say.

“Great!” she says, and then lowers her voice, “I wanted to get you a Green Arrow cake, but I thought this wouldn’t be a great idea, you know, with your mom and Walter here…”

Felicity continues to talk next to him, but Oliver just smiles, listening to her voice. He knows he’s in love with Felicity, has known for a while now, just like everyone else except her. Or, if she knows, she’s  never mentioned it.

Oliver has loved before, he wouldn’t have spent years living with Sara if he didn’t love her. But his past experiences didn’t – couldn’t have – prepared him for what’s it like being in love with Felicity Smoak.

He spent so long trying to find out what his life was supposed to be like - what was his place in the world was - but nothing ever felt so right as being next to her. Her presence calms his heart in a way he can’t explain, the way she always knows what to say to make him feel better or how just a smile from her can brighten his day.

From the moment he got to know Felicity, he realized he had to do his best to never let her go. He spent too long not having her in his life; he’s not about to lose her because of his own feelings. So, Oliver keeps them to himself.

He saw Felicity dating other people albeit not for long- he understood her explanation about not wanting any meaningful relationship and caught onto her unsaid words about how she had been hurt before. He went on a few dates and tried to move on, knowing Felicity wasn’t interested, but it was useless. His heart belonged to her, even if she never knew it.

He looks at her smiling brightly at the party she organized, talking to their friends and fitting so well into his family and he knows being her friend is enough. It’s more than he ever had and, for that, he is glad.

 

~~

 

_ December 31st, 2020. _

Felicity can feel the excitement bursting through her skin, but, unlike most people attending this party, she’s not counting down the minutes until the next year. At least not in the way they think. She meets Oliver’s eyes in the other side of the room, and smiles. Even though he’s smiling to Walter and pretending to pay attention, she knows he’s nervous.

This is their last day on this life. None of them paid attention to the hours in either of other times, but they know they were asleep when it happened. Felicity wonders what would happen if they tried to stay up, if they just don’t fall asleep… But she knows that even if they manage to delay the restart, it wouldn’t be for more than a few hours. At least this time they’d have each other, or so she hopes.

“So, is 2021 finally going to be the year you two stop acting like idiots?” Thea says, suddenly popping next to her, followed by Roy.

“What are you talking about?” Felicity asks, not understanding where this talk came from.

“You and Ollie,” Thea explains, pointing to where Felicity was still looking, “You two haven’t taken your eyes off each other since you arrived. It’s so clear there’s something going on and yet it’s been years and nothing. It’s painful to watch.”

Felicity removes her eyes from Oliver and manages to avoid blushing. She knows Thea well enough to realize this would only fuel her reaction. She’s about to dismiss her comment when Roy nods and decides to offer his opinion too.

“You two are disgusting,” he says, provoking an eye-roll from his girlfriend, “Do you have any idea how many times we had to restart the bet because none of you would actually make a move? I’ve lost a hundred bucks over this.”

Felicity narrows her eyes at his comment, but offers no futher response. The bet is not anything new, it’s been going around for five years now and Roy is not the first to tell her about it – Curtis insisted on making her get with Oliver before the end of 2017 so he could win, which had almost made her fire him for -, but for the first time, Felicity stops to consider it. If the universe didn’t send them back, if they could just stay in this life forever, she could see herself being with Oliver.

She’s not oblivious to his feelings for her. It may have taken a few more years to catch on it than it took her friends, but Felicity knows full well Oliver likes her. And, if she’s true to herself, she has feelings for him too. She tried so hard to not let him win her heart, to not be vulnerable to loss again, but it was all for naught.

“Is everything okay here?” Oliver says, approaching them. His hand immediately finds Felicity’s arm, it's become his habit to do when he checks on her.

“Don’t worry, big bro, we’re just giving Felicity some tips for what she can do next year,” Thea says, winking at Felicity and making Roy burst in laughter.

The couple leaves at that and Oliver sends Felicity a questioning look, but she just shakes her head, not wanting to explain.

“It’s almost midnight,” Oliver notices, “Are you ready?”

“More than I’ll ever be,” she answers, taking his hand.

It doesn’t take long before the countdown starts. Felicity looks around at the people who she’s grown so close in the last years. Roy and Thea are embraced in each other, while Rene, Curtis and Dinah laugh with each other in the corner of the room. John and Lyla have gone to her sister’s house to celebrate Christmas and hadn’t been back yet, and Tommy and Laurel decided to stay home, having two young children to take care of. Felicity makes a mental note to send all of them a new year’s message before it was too late. She never had so many friends in her life and she’ll miss all of them.

She looks at Oliver, silent at her side, still holding her hand, and knows she’ll miss him the most. Felicity remembers how painful was waking up to this life and realizing her baby didn’t exist anymore and that Billy had no idea who she was. Just the thought of Oliver not recognizing her in the next life makes her heart ache.

When the countdown gets to zero and the crowds explodes in celebration, Felicity finds Oliver’s eyes. He’s looking at her lips and she knows he’s thinking of kissing her. For a moment she entertains the thought of closing the space between them. What would it be like to, just for a second, let herself taste his lips and embrace the love she knows he’ll give her.

Before she can do something she'll regret, she hugs him, whispering him a happy new year in his ear. Oliver squeezes her, like he, too, is scared of letting her go.

They don’t leave each other's sides for the rest of the party. And, when most of guests leave, Oliver pulls her to his old bedroom. They don’t even bother changing clothes, opting instead to just take off their shoes and lay in bed, staring at each other and waiting.

“I don’t want to lose you,” Felicity whispers in the dark, close enough to feel him looking at her but not to see his actual eyes.

“You’re never going to lose me,” he answers, touching her face and resting his forehead on hers. “No matter where we are, we’re going to find each other, Felicity.”

More than anything, she needs that to be true. Enwrapped in his arms, Felicity closes her eyes and tries to rest. There’s no guarantee they’ll wake up years in the past again with their memories intact, but Felicity has to hope. She may have lived without him for years, but she can no longer imagine her life without him in it.

At some point during the night, they both fall asleep in each other's arms.

They’ll wake up in very different circumstances. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soo, this chapter had a lot of olicity moments in it, didn't it? What did you guys think of it? Excited for the next life?
> 
> I'm not sure if I'll be able to post a new chapter next week, but I'll do my best to keep my schedule!
> 
> Please, leave a comment telling me your opinions on the fic/chapter and in exchange I'll sell y'all my soul! :D


	6. The Fourth Life

_ October 13th, 2007. _

Felicity wakes up wrapped up in someone’s arms. Her eyes are closed, but she can feel a man’s body against her back, his hand on her waist, pulling her closer.

“Oliver,” she says, still half-asleep, and turns to face him. She blinks slowly, waking up, and finds herself staring at someone who’s very much not Oliver. “Cooper,” she whispers, correcting herself.

“Who the hell is Oliver?!” Cooper asks after a few seconds, his tone is harsh and Felicity instinctively pulls away from him, but the weight of his arms around her keeps her in place.

“No one, I was sleep talking,” she says, her mind racing too fast for her to come up with an excuse.

_ Cooper _ . Her heart aches at her realization. She already expected to wake up in the past, after the first two times, she shouldn’t be surprised. But she thought she’d wake up in her college dorm or in her mom’s place. She had hardly even talked to Cooper during her other lives and she had no intention to ever let him touch her again. It feels inherently more wrong to wake up in bed with Cooper when she had just fallen asleep next to Oliver.

God, Oliver. Will he remember her? Should she call him? Would they both wake up at the same day? Neither of them were completely sure of the exact dates they came back, but they agreed it was around the same time.

Felicity slowly gets herself out of Cooper’s embrace, thanking her past-self for wearing clothes to bed so she doesn’t have to expose herself even more. She easily finds the rest of her clothes and a backpack on the floor, being ready to be as far of Cooper as she could.

“Where are you going, babe?” Cooper asks when he realize Felicity is about to leave the room, “I thought you were going to stay for the weekend? I even sent Byron away!”

“Sorry, something came up!”

Before Cooper can even protest, she’s out of the door. Now, that was something she didn’t want a repeat of.

She doesn’t even have time to think much before she’s back at her own dorm. Her room is empty and Felicity feels grateful for that, she doesn’t feel like having to explain herself to Jenny right now. Felicity takes her laptop from her backpack, ready to find Oliver’s phone and call him, when she finally looks at the date. They are already in October of 2007. This is a lot later in the year than before.

Her heart stops for a second when she realizes what this means for Oliver. A quick google search later she confirms what she already knew, they woke up too late. Oliver’s on the island.

 

~~

 

The first thing Oliver feels when he wakes up is pain. Excruciating pain. He feels like he wakes up and falls asleep a million times before he can even think of what is happening. Once his consciousness lasts more than ten seconds, he realizes where he is. Oliver almost laughs because where else would he be?

He feels the panic building up in his chest. He is on the island. He’s trapped in fucking Lian Yu again.

It’s been many years – way too many years – but there’s no mistaking. Oliver’s seen this place in his nightmares too many times to forget anything about it. The strong smell of wood and dirt. The humidity of the air. Every detail comes straight from the darkest parts of his mind, a part he tried to hide deep down.

Sometimes, he used to dream he woke up exactly like this and found out he never got out of the island. He was still trapped there and all the other lives were just figment of his imagination. In the rational part of his brain, Oliver knows this can’t be true, he can differentiate dreams for memories. But, at this moment, the only thing he knows to be true is that he’s hurt and lost in the island. He doesn’t even know what year they are and he has no way to find out.

He’s in some sort of cave, it’s dark and he can’t see a way out, but there’s food next to him and, although he has some bad wounds, it seems like someone’s been treating him. He tries to move, but fails, it hurts too much. He examines his body and figures he can’t have been in Lian Yu for too long, there are too few scars.

It’s his knowledge that comforts him at this time. He couldn’t know any of this if he hadn’t lived it already. And if he has lived it, it means it was all true.

It means Felicity exists. He knows if she’s out there, she can find him eventually. If anyone can save him, it’s her.

The thought of her going to Lian Yu makes him freeze though. The island is always dangerous, but it was especially so in that first year. If she tried to go there, she would end up getting hurt. Oliver needed to make sure that didn’t happen.

Oliver doesn’t know how much time it passes before he seems some light and Yao Fei shows up, bringing him some food and some clarity. It doesn’t take too long before he realizes exactly when he is and starts coming up with a plan.

Felicity was scared they wouldn’t find each other, but Oliver knows that’s not true. Even if he has to live those five years again before he can go back, he will go home and find Felicity.

 

~~

 

_ October 30th, 2007. _

Felicity hears the clicking sound of heels approaching and she freezes. She knew this was happening, but with so many things happening, she didn’t have time to prepare. When she turns, Moira Queen is staring at her up and down, probably trying to understand what this goth teenager is doing there.

“ _ This _ is Ms. Smoak?” Moira asks the man next to her, her chief of security, and looks ready to leave at this very second.

“Yes, Mrs. Queen. I know she looks very young, but the information she provided has been useful,” he says.

Felicity just smiles and regrets not putting an effort in looking less threatening. In her defense, buying clothes wasn’t on her priority list and her entire wardrobe seemed to be made of black, grey and purple. To be honest, Mrs. Queen hadn’t liked Felicity even when she dressed like a businesswoman, so maybe clothes wouldn’t make much of a difference.

“Mrs. Queen, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” Felicity finally introduces herself, “I’m glad you could join us.”

“They said you found Oliver,” Moira goes directly to the point. Her tone continues to be cold and sceptic, but Felicity hears the little break she makes when she says Oliver’s name, “How?”

“I’m good with computers,” she answers.

There’s no way she can tell the truth. Not any of it. Finding Oliver wasn’t the problem at all, she knew he was in Lian Yu and it didn’t took her long to find out  _ where _ that was. Her initial plan was to just get a plane or a boat and go there herself to get him, but a more careful research showed her this would be a terrible idea. The island was being controlled by Edward Fyers, a mercenary that, for all Felicity could find out, was working for Amanda Waller.

Convincing Waller to send Fyers away and at the same time protecting her identity from A.R.G.U.S was almost impossible, but somehow Felicity managed to do it all in two weeks. She never appreciated growing up in Vegas so much as when she had to bluff her way through a power play with A.R.G.U.S and managed to get out unaffected. But, unfortunately, getting A.R.G.U.S. out of their way was no guarantee there wouldn’t still be mercenaries around Lian Yu or even other dangers, so Felicity had gone to the only other people she knew were as interested as her in bringing Oliver back: the Queen family.

She had to hack her way to find the security company that was working on Oliver’s search and then had to fake credentials to pretend she had any business working with them. She couldn’t pretend to be older than the eighteen years-old her body was, but she didn’t even have to fake being a genius.

“I have more information I’m willing to give, as soon as you sign my contract,” Felicity says.

Her only real demand is that she’s part of the rescue team. She wants to be there when they rescue Oliver. To make sure he’s safe. Felicity knows it would be suspicious if she didn’t want any money for it, especially considering the amount Moira’s offering.

Moira stares at her once more and then motions to the chief of security, who immediately brings her papers. Moira only takes a look at it, before she’s signing it. She brings them directly to Felicity, looking to her eyes as she accepts the offer.

“Just bring them back to me,” Moira says as she hands the papers.

Felicity heart breaks a little when she thinks about how Moira still thinks there’s a chance Robert is also there. Felicity was very clear in her reports that she only has evidence of  _ Oliver _ being in Lian Yu, but she can’t affirm Robert isn’t without sounding suspicious. She just nods and hands Moira the USB drive she has with all information they need to rescue Oliver.

 

~~

 

_ November 4th, 2007. _

“What’s your plan now, kid?” Slade asks him.

Despite having assumed a leadership position in the last couple weeks, Oliver looks at Yao Fei, who just nods. His mentor might have been surprised by Oliver’s sudden change in behavior and abilities, but neither of them are in a position to question anything. Oliver had proved his loyalty many times and his plan was working so far.

Fyers had been defeated, though Oliver thinks he owes more to luck than to his knowledge for that. There seemed to be having some kind of internal conflict when they attacked. Unfortunately, that ended up with all the communication being destroyed. Now, Oliver needs to find a way to rescue Sara and the other prisoners. Oliver is about to lay out a plan with his two friends when Yao Fei holds his hand, listening to something. Oliver and Slade both turn their attention to the sounds and soon Oliver can identify the sound of planes.

None of them need to think much before running to find a place to hide. Their history in the island says that nothing good ever comes, but, despite his instincts, Oliver finds hope in his heart that this time help is coming. But he’s not about to bet his life on that, he has no idea if killing Fyers earlier had some impact on the timeline and this is the universe making sure he stays on the island again.

The sound stops a few minutes later and they stay in place, waiting. They hear the steps of people going through the woods and Oliver offers to go investigate. Yao Fei and Slade both think it’s smarter to stay hidden for now and investigate later, but Oliver feels his skin itching with need to find what is happening. In the end, the three of them end up leaving their hiding place and searching together. There are a lot of people with big guns, seeing to be searching for something. They are talking through comms and Oliver can’t hear what they say

He’s about to retreat and when he sees her.

She has her hair dyed in dark black, wrapped up in a messy ponytail, she’s wearing all black clothes and a boot. It’s a startling contrast with the last time he saw her, in a red dress, party makeup and golden hair. But Oliver would recognize Felicity anywhere, in any life.

His feet start walking to her before his mind can process. Yao Fei and Slade both call after him, but Oliver is already exposed. All the guns turn to him immediately, but Oliver doesn’t care, his eyes are on Felicity. He sees the exact second she turns to his direction and recognizes him.

Felicity smiles so brightly he could lose himself in it. He wants to run to her arms and bury his face in her neck for the next five years at least. Felicity seems to have a similar idea, because she makes a move in his direction and someone holds her arm. Oliver is about to say something when he notices other people have approached him, one of them dropping the gun in the floor.

“Oliver Queen?” the person without the gun asks, and Oliver just nods, “We’re here to take you home.”

He finds Felicity’s eyes and she nods to him, confirming he can trust them. Some people show up with medical equipment and try to take care of him, but Oliver is more interested in his friend’s safety. It takes a while before Slade and Yao Fei agree to trust them, but soon the three of them are there and the search team is reunited, creating a tactic plan to invade the Amazo and rescue the prisoners, including Sara.

Most of the team goes to the Amazo, leaving only about two other people and Felicity who guide the three of them to where the plane is. They meet with a lawyer at the plane, who talks with Yao Fei and Slade about the technicalities of them going back and the legal terms of everything that happened.

Oliver slides next to Felicity as soon as he can, they’ve been near each other for over an hour without exchanging any word.

“You’re not supposed to know me,” she whispers when he gets too close.

“I don’t care,” he says right before he pulls her into a hug.

“You’re going to blow my cover,” she complains, but one second later she’s buring her head in his chest and wrapping her arms around him as tightly as she can. “Oh god, I missed you.”

“You found me,” he says in a smile, “I told you we’d find each other.”

Oliver doesn’t know how long it’s been since he woke up on the island, and later he’d find there’d only been three weeks, but he feels it’s been an eternity since he held her. He kisses her head and he feels Felicity’s tears through his worn shirt. They stay wrapped up in each other for a long time before Felicity moves out of his embrace and looks at his face again, wiping the tears away from her eyes, she smiles at him.

“So, what’s up with the goth look?” he teases her, raising his eyebrows at her hair and outfit.

“Like you have any right to judge me, with this ridiculous haircut,” she says in a laugh and points to his messy hair. Oliver tries to look offended, but he just smiles and touches her long hair, needing the contact.

“Not judging, just observing,” he notes.

“Oliver,” she whispers, “Kiss me.”

She doesn’t wait for him to answer, her hand goes to the back of his neck and her lips find his. Oliver doesn’t take long to catch on it either, deepening the kiss. It’s three weeks of worry, years of pining and a lifetime of waiting away. They clash at each other with thirst, but slow down to a comforting pattern of people who know they have their entire lives to be with each other. They savor each other and memorize every corner of their mouths, their tongues dancing in synchronicity, welcoming, learning and loving.

Two souls meeting for the first time after lives of searching for each other.

“Thank you for bringing me home,” Oliver whispers to her when they stop to breathe, their faces only inches from each other.

Felicity looks confused for a second before she smiles and hides her face in his neck, kissing him.

“Thank you for being here,” she says.

She doesn’t mean Lian Yu. Neither of them does, but they don’t need to verbalize their feelings at this moment, they don’t need to. Their heads are in the exact same place.

“Ollie?” A voice calls him and he turns to see Sara coming in the plane.

Felicity lets go of him immediately, jumping away from him, her absence leaving Oliver unsettled. He tries to reach her again, but she’s walking to Sara. She looks back at him and Oliver knows the next hours are going to be difficult. He sits next to Sara, resting his hand on her shoulders and it doesn’t escape him how she shivers when he does that. Sara’s eyes are wandering non-stop around the plane, and when other now free prisoners enter the plane, Sara makes herself smaller. She looks to Felicity with suspicion.

“Sara, this is Felicity, she’s the one who found us,” Oliver says and Felicity waves at her, kneeling next to Sara, “Everything is going to be okay now,” he tells Sara.

“I don’t think it is,” she whispers and Oliver’s heart breaks.

Sara looks completely lost, in a way he hasn’t seen in too long. He’s seen Sara broken and rebuilt to many times, but now he only sees a scared young girl, who just been captive for months and has no idea of who she is anymore.

“I don’t know what I do now,” Sara says.

“You survive,” Felicity responds in a soft voice as she sits next to Sara.

The next hours go in a blur. Oliver is tired from the last few weeks and he ends up falling asleep as soon as the plane takes off. There’s a murmur of people talking, survivors deciding what they are going to do with their lives. The search team trying to organize everything. Sara and Felicity’s voices next to him.

He wakes up with Felicity poking him. She informs him they have landed in Starling City and most people, including Sara, are already out of the plane. His family is out there waiting for him.

She holds his hand for a few seconds and then lets go, pushing him to get out of the plane. He sees his mom, Thea and Tommy as soon as he’s out of the door, his sister goes running to him, hugging him close, and his mom doesn’t take too long to pull him for an embrace.

From the corner of his eyes, he sees Sara being hugged by her mother and Quentin. He takes notice of Laurel’s absence and makes a note in his brain to go talk to her once this is all over.

There are a lot of cops and people who are interviewing everyone who stepped out of the plane. They don’t seem to be really concerned about him, only taking a brief statement before releasing him to go home. Oliver finds Slade next to Yao Fei, who is still being questioned, and learns they are both going to Australia. Slade’s been confirmed as a citizen and Yao Fei is going to stay as a refugee while things aren’t settled with the Chinese government, having already got a hold of Shado and Mei on the phone and arranging for them to meet.

He goes back to his family to see his mom talking to Felicity, thanking her for the help.

Her eyes find his and she smiles. He doesn’t have any excuse to take her with him now, and he knows he has to focus on his family, who just got him back, but he finally gets to kiss Felicity and having to stay far from her is its own kind of torture. He doesn’t stop to think about how it will look to other people, he just goes to Felicity and hugs her again.

“Don’t go away,” he says in her ear.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she answers and he can feel her smiling, “You’re not getting rid of me that fast. Now go before it starts looking weird.”

He rolls his eyes at that. He has no patience for trying to not look weird,he’s been  trying to pretend to be in the same time as everyone for way too long. He just wants to enjoy his actual life now. But he knows Felicity is right, so he lets go of her and find his family again. If there’s one thing they have it is time.

 

~~

 

_ November 17th, 2007. _

“Felicity?” A voice calls her over, making Felicity look up from her phone.

That’s not who she was expecting though. Sara Lance is staring at her, wearing long sleeves and huge eyebags, she looks like she’s seem a ghost. Felicity is surprised Sara even recognizes her considering they’ve only met once before. The two of them have never really been friends, by the time she moved to Starling in her last life, Sara had left to work in the middle east as a doctor. They had met a few times during holidays and she felt she got to know Sara through Oliver and Laurel, with whom she had a lot more contact. Their biggest interaction so far was when she had helped in Oliver and Sara’s rescue, but that had been two weeks ago and Felicity had time to cut and dye her hair back to her preferred color since.

“Sara! How are you doing?” Felicity is surprised to see Sara, but quickly motions for the girl to sit next to her in the café.

They might not be close, but Felicity can’t help but caring about how Sara is handling everything. Oliver was confident Sara would be okay, saying she had gone through much worse before, but Sara looked so vulnerable when they rescued her. Felicity knows she has the potential to be an assassin or superhero, but when she was saved, Felicity just saw a little girl who had been hurt and needed someone to comfort her. Felicity knows all too well that the two things are not exclusive.

“I’m adapting,” Sara answers nonchalantly, shrugging, but Felicity notes how her fingernails have been bitten and how she keeps fidgeting with her hands. “It’s just… weird,” Sara continues, looking like she wants to say more, but then closes her mouth. “It doesn’t matter. I’m here now. I think I never really thanked you, Felicity, but I’m really grateful. For finding us and for staying next to me the whole flight back.”

“It was nothing,” Felicity answers, “I know you don’t know me, but you can talk to me if you want, Sara.”

“I shouldn’t complain… I got out of there, after all,” Sara says, biting her lip, “But it’s been hard being back. My parents are fighting a lot… And Laurel won’t even talk to me. I think she wishes I stayed dead.”

“She doesn’t!” Felicity says before she can even think she’s not supposed to know Laurel. “She’s still your sister,” she completes, trying to hide her slip.

“You don’t know us,” Sara rolls her eyes, “I slept with her boyfriend. She hates me.”

“She probably resents you now, but that doesn’t mean she wants you to be dead. It’s going to take her some time before she can forgive you.”

Or at least Felicity hopes she’s right. The Laurel she knew completely adored her sister and missed her very much, Laurel used to talk about Sara with so much love in her last life, Felicity doubts she could ever truly hate her sister. Of course, that Sara never got with Oliver. Felicity had heard Oliver’s story from his first life and, according to him, Sara and Laurel became close again after everything, so there’s hope for them.

“Maybe you’re right,” Sara concedes, “She’s coming home for Thanksgiving and I just wanted things to go back the way they were.”

“Things were probably not that good before if you slept with your sister’s boyfriend,” Felicity points out and then grimaces, “Sorry, none of my business.”

“No, you’re right. They weren’t… But at least I felt like I knew who I was,” Sara sighs.

“You’ll find out again,” Felicity smiles and she’s about to continue when she sees Oliver coming in the café.

He stops on his track when he notices Sara, but it’s too late, Sara has already turned to see where Felicity is looking.

“Are you meeting him?” Sara asks, pointing to Oliver. Felicity tries to think of an excuse, but her blush gives her away. “Wow, he’s moving fast.”

That’s terrible timing. Oliver and Felicity haven’t seen each other in weeks, with Oliver being with his family and Felicity traveling to Boston to solve pending issues with MIT. She had no intention of going to college for yet another time and, anyways, she had to fake her graduation to join Oliver’s search group, so she couldn’t ungraduated herself now. She and Oliver kept talking during those two weeks, but she was honestly anxious to see him, so much that she had arrived too early in the coffeeshop they planned on meeting. And for all the days he could arrive on time, Oliver chose when Sara Lance decided to talk to Felicity.

Not that there is anything unfinished with Oliver and Sara. Their relationship was never meant to last, especially after everything that happened, and Oliver had the intention to finish it as soon as he could. Sara managed to be even faster, telling Oliver that had been a mistake and they needed to be away from each other for a while. Still, Felicity thinks there were better ways to let Sara know that Oliver had moved on already.

“Don’t worry. I’m in no position to judge,” Sara says and gets up from her chair, waving to Oliver. “Nice to see you, Ollie.”

Oliver tries to start conversation, but Sara dismisses it pretty quickly and says goodbye to both of them, smiling at Felicity. Once Sara leaves the place, Oliver arches his eyebrows at Felicity, wondering what Sara was doing there and leans to kiss her cheek.

“Hey,” he says in his softest voice. “I’ve missed you,” he completes and takes her hand in his.

“Sorry I had to leave so fast,” she apologizes even though they’ve already talked about it over the phone. “I got everything organized now though, so I’m here to stay,” she smiles at him. “Oh, I haven’t told you, guess who called me earlier? Your mom!” Oliver frowns at that and she completes, “She offered me a job! Can you believe she actually doesn’t hate me in this life?”

“She didn’t hate you,” Oliver answers on reflex and Felicity rolls her eyes, “Are you accepting it?”

“I’m thinking about it, yeah,” Felicity shrugs, “I could restart Smoak Tech but I don’t think people will take an 18 years-old CEO very seriously.”

Oliver nods, understanding. Going back in time might have its perks, but being back in a teenage body is definitely not one of them, at least not to Felicity. She had worked hard to be taken seriously as a businesswoman in her last life, which was not easy being a young woman in a field dominated by men. Although she loved her company and was very proud of it, Felicity is not sure she wants to go through it all again, to have all the trouble to establish herself in the market only to lose it all once 2021 arrived.

“You dyed it back,” he notes, holding a lock of her now-blonde hair. “That’s a shame.”

“Sorry to ruin your goth fantasy,” she rolls her eyes and then runs a hand through his short hair, “I can’t say I’m sad you cut your hair though. I hated the serial-killer look.”

Oliver laughs at that and leans to kiss her. Their lips meet halfway and they kiss like they’ve been doing it for years. It surprises Felicity how natural kissing him is; after all the years of friendship she imagined kissing Oliver would feel weird, but not at all. There is no awkwardness or uncertain moves, they jump into each other with both eyes closed and find that being in each other’s arms is the closest to home they’ll ever be.

“Is your new apartment near here?” Oliver asks her, breaking the kiss. Felicity just nods and pulls him back into the kiss. “Why don’t we go there?” He says, starting to get up.

“Don’t you want to eat anything?” Felicity asks and, when Oliver grins at that, rolls her eyes, “You know what I mean.”

Oliver doesn’t have to answer it, his eyes say everything. He pulls her by her hand out of the café and kisses her again as soon as they are in the street, not taking his hand out of her for a second. Felicity smiles in the kiss and feels her stomach turning inside her. She blames her young body’s hormones for feeling so giddy, but if she’s true to herself she can admit she’d feel like that at any age. It’s the effect Oliver has on her.

Her apartment is right on the corner and it doesn’t take them long to get there. Most of her things are still on boxes and what isn’t is all over the place, since she hasn’t had time to organize anything. Oliver doesn’t seem to even notice it, he’s pushing her through a wall one moment and in the other he’s already locating her bedroom and laying her on her bed.

Felicity takes his shirt and runs her hand through the scars forming in his chest. It’s not a lot, Felicity knows he used to have a lot more and it wasn’t like he didn’t have any in their last life. But it’s different now. She kisses the scar and makes her way up to his mouth, pulling him on top of her.

“Felicity,” Oliver moans when she starts kissing his neck, he turns his head so he can see her face and smiles at her, “I love you.”

It’s nothing she doesn’t know; their love has been a reality in her head for too long. But it’s the first time she hears he saying it and it makes her heart burst into flames. She kisses him and puts everything she’s feeling into it, she uses her strength and turns him on his back, being on top of him. When she breaks their kiss and looks at Oliver, his eyes are bright and he has a dopey smile in his face. He looks like he’s staring at the stars and she can only imagine she doesn’t look much different.

“I love you too,” she says, finally.

They don’t need more words after that. They show their love in other ways, they let their heart guide their touch and slowly learn their way through each other’s body. Mapping every little corner, memorizing the most sensitive parts and opening themselves in every way possible. Oliver’s body against hers, Felicity can feel their connection growing. She can feel Oliver’s love overflowing in her and she tries to demonstrate her own love in equal ways.

 

~~

 

_ February 15th, 2013. _

“I can’t believe you brought the cat,” Oliver mumbles next to Felicity as she leaves the kitten on the floor of their living room, next to all cat stuff she convinced him to buy.

“Like you weren’t half in love with her already!” Felicity answers in disbelief, “I just did what you didn’t have the courage to do.”

“We don’t have time to take care of a cat, Felicity,” he points out, but he knows it’s a lost cause. She’s not even looking at him, too entertained with the cat.

“Don’t mind him, Scully, daddy is just being grumpy,” Felicity whispers to the cat, kissing her little head.

Felicity has been rewatching The X-Files, and dragging him with her because she finds absurd that he hasn’t watched it yet, so it’s no surprise that she’s already named the orange cat after agent Scully. What surprises him is the hearing Felicity referring to him as Scully’s “daddy”. They’ve been together for over five years and although Felicity did her best to avoid the topic of children, she eventually shared about the baby she lost and her grief over not having children. Both of them had accepted their fate already, and Felicity said she didn’t care anymore, but he could see she got upset every time anyone mentioned children in their future.

Oliver knows very well that having a cat is not the same as having children, but he hopes the kitty can bring to Felicity some comfort about it.

“Rescuing a cat was not how I imagined this night would go,” he notes, laying on the sofa and bringing Scully next to him.

“Arrow business always interrupting our dates,” she says, sitting next to him so she can pet Scully.

He had a whole plan. Let Diggle and Roy – both who had recently joined Team Arrow – have the Valentine’s day free, so he and Felicity could go out today. They were following a lead on a big drug trafficking deal and Oliver couldn’t afford to lose a day, Roy and Digg were just supposed to keep a look, studying the place, and not make any move, but Oliver should have imagined Roy wouldn’t follow his orders. And with his lack of training, Oliver ended up going there to save his friends.

In the end, they’d managed to catch some of the guys, stop a deal that was about to happen and rescue a kitten that was in the dealer’s possession. Hopefully, the police would be able to pressure them enough to find out who was in charge of it.

But that meant he had to let go of his date with Felicity. The date he’d been planning for months now.

“Don’t worry, honey, we can go out another day,” Felicity says, noting Oliver’s moping.

“Today was special,” he grumbles, “We met today.”

“Oh! Was that what you were waiting for?” she asks suddenly, like she’s just realized something and then covers her mouth.

Oliver looks at her with suspicion and Felicity just shrugs.

“You know?” he asks, trying to read her and Felicity just roll her eyes at that.

“That you are planning on proposing? Yeah, Oliver, I’m a genius, but I didn’t even need to be to find out that one. I found the ring over two years ago, I honestly thought you had changed your mind but then you started being really obvious about it,” she explained, “No pressure though! Propose whenever you want, or don’t… I mean, I’ll say yes, but you don’t  _ have _ to.”

Oliver interrupts Felicity by kissing her. At any other time, he’d be happy to hear her babble, but right now he can’t stand the idea of not touching her. He is about to deepen the kiss when he hears a meow of complaint coming from Scully, who is stuck in the middle of them. Oliver carefully puts the cat on the floor and takes his ring out of his pocket, bringing a smile to Felicity’s face.

“I got this ring three years ago, on the one-year anniversary of us moving together” he tells her, “But my mom found out and talked about how young we still were. I decided to wait until it was more age appropriate, but I knew I wanted to marry you since the very first week we were together. Felicity Smoak, will you marry me?”

“Yes!” she practically yells at him, giving him her hand, “In this life and in any other,” she completes.

They still have almost eight years in this life and Oliver intends to spend most of these as Felicity’s husband. He should have done this a long time ago, but he didn’t want to rush anything and he knew getting married too young would attract odd looks. Felicity was already bothered by people commenting about her having her job at QC because she’s dating a Queen, he didn’t want her to deal with anything else.

But when they are together, Oliver knows none of that matters. They are the only ones who know they truth about themselves, who know all they’ve been through, who understand their experience and know there’s a lot more in life than others can see.

They might have just gotten engaged, but for all purposes, Felicity has been his wife for way longer. She’s been his partner in every way possible for years now. And he can’t wait to make that official. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya! What did you guys think of it? I'm sorry about the big time jump in the end, I originally planned to write scenes in between these two but the 2007 scenes got a lot longer than I planned so I had to move on. Also it would probably just be fluff anyway and not necessary for plot.
> 
> Also, I know I already skipped one week, but I might have to skip next week's update as well. I'm writing as I go now and I'll be traveling during this week, so I'll hardly have any time to write. So don't be surprised if it's another two weeks before an update (but no longer than that, I promise!).
> 
> Please tell me your opinions of this chapter!! I am incredly insecure about it, because it involves a lot of romantic scenes and I'm... not good at that. So if you enjoyed it, TELL ME so I can feel better about myself. If you hated it, that's your right, but DON'T tell me unless you want me to burst in shame and never be heard of again.


	7. The Fourth Life - Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not happy about how this chapter turned out, but it is what it is. I'm sorry.

_ April 3rd, 2015. _

“Oh, baby, Oliver is going to die when he sees you,” Donna tells Felicity as she looks at the picture once more.

They had just left the store half an hour before, after Felicity had found her perfect dress, and Donna couldn’t stop talking about the wedding, looking at the pictures she had taken. Her mom had voiced her worries when Felicity and Oliver got engaged, although Donna adored her soon to be son-in-law, she couldn’t understand Felicity just jumping into such a meaningful relationship so soon and she didn’t want her daughter to marry young like she did and then regret. It’s been two years of engagement though and Donna has accepted that Felicity and Oliver are meant to be.

“Ollie would die even if Felicity was wearing pajamas,” Thea comments, making Donna laugh and Felicity just roll her eyes.

If it was only up to her, she and Oliver would have gotten married a long time ago, without any of that fuss. Unfortunately for her, both her mom and Moira decided that they needed to make a big event. As the current QC’s Vice President, Felicity understood the importance of her image and ended up letting her family make all the decisions for them. Oliver was not happy about the waiting, but they both agreed this was more of a formality than anything, they didn’t need a piece of paper to tell how much they meant to each other.

“I’m almost done with the bridesmaid design,” Thea says, showing the pictures to Felicity on her phone, “I had to do some modifications because of Laurel’s pregnancy, but I think it turned out alright.”

“Laurel’s pregnant?” Felicity asks, not knowing that.

She’s friends with both Laurel and Sara. In this life, she ended up being a lot closer to Sara, but since Sara had moved out to Coast City, Felicity found herself hanging out more and more with Laurel, especially since she and Tommy got married. She had been one of her best friends in her last life now and, even though it took Laurel some time before she could forgive both Oliver and Sara this time, eventually it happened.

“Oh yeah, she just found out,” Thea supplies, “I think they haven’t told anyone yet, but she had to tell me because of the dress, since she’s going to be huge by your wedding. Pretend to be surprised when she tells you.”

It shouldn’t be a surprise, not really. When she became friends with Laurel in her last life, Laurel already had a son and just had another one when she came back in time. Laurel being a mom isn’t surprising, it should be something she was used to. And yet, Felicity can’t stop the sudden jealousy overwhelming her body. She’s planning her wedding, literally starting a family with Oliver and she knows there are never going to be children in their future.

She tries to pretend not to be affected for her mom and Thea’s sake, but her mood drops immediately after she learns about Laurel’s pregnancy. Maybe it doesn’t help that she’s recently saw Billy in town. She didn’t mind it at the time, she didn’t talk to him and he doesn’t know her. Although he was important to her, Felicity can see now that what they had doesn’t compare to what she has with Oliver. Billy was a sweetheart, but they could never completely understand each other. 

She wants to spend the rest of her life with Oliver. She wants to grow old with him, to have children, grandchildren. But that’s not her life. At least she has Oliver to go home every day and, really, that’s more than enough to make her happy.

 

~~

 

_ September 12nd, 2015. _

“Is Iris going to be your plus one for the wedding?” Oliver asks Barry as they get their coffee orders from Jitters. Barry looks behind him, to the table where Felicity is talking to Iris, Caitlin and Cisco.

“That was the plan… Before she met Felicity and got an invitation of her own,” Barry sighs.

They just spent the last two weeks helping Team Flash defeat a metahuman and the time away from Starling had been surprisingly good to the two of them. Donna has all but moved to their apartment, claiming she’s helping with some last details of the wedding, and Felicity is more stressed than ever. She has mentioned cancelling the wedding and eloping enough times that Oliver knows she’s not entirely joking. Just two more weeks and they’ll be married.

He’s thinking about his wedding when a little boy bumps into him, tripping and falling into the floor. Oliver motions to help him when his mom arrives behind him. The moment he looks in the boy’s eyes, Oliver senses something weird.

“Oliver,” the boy’s mom says, going pale as she sees him. She takes her son by his hand and pulls him beside her. “Sorry about that. Let’s go, William.”

It takes him a few seconds to click who is she. Samantha. He went out with her a few times back in his first life and the only reason he remembers her is because she had gotten pregnant and then had a miscarriage. Oliver had been young at that time and not at all ready to be a father, but the experience marked him. He talked to Samantha once again during his second life and she seemed to be okay, but he was with Laurel back then and determined not to make the same mistakes.

He woke up too late in this life to stop any of that from happening. In this life, things had happened just like the first life. Oliver looks at the boy again, trying to figure out his age. It’s Samantha’s posture that makes Oliver connect the dots though, she looks like she’s seen a ghost and tries to get both her and her son out of there as quick as possible.

“Samantha?” Oliver calls after her, but she’s already turned away and is leaving the coffee shop, disappearing from his view.

Part of him thinks of running after her, demanding to know the truth. But he just freezes in the same place. He looks at Felicity, who is staring at him with her brows frowned. If he’s not crazy, if his conclusion is right and William is his, it’s going to be hard on Felicity.

“Are you okay, man?” Barry asks him, making him wake up to reality.

It takes him all the excuses he can invent and hacking abilities he hasn’t had to use in many years, but two days later he manages to get Samantha’s address. Felicity presses him to tell her what is going on and he keeps avoiding the subject. He says to himself he’s not going to upset her without any valid reason. Maybe Samantha was sleeping with other guys besides him, he knows it’s unlikely, especially when he finds William’s birth certificate with no listed father, but he can’t know for sure.

He drives all the way back to Central City by himself, his heart almost jumping out of his chest. He has almost seven decades of life experience, put hundreds of criminals in jail, killed decades of people and, yet, he’s never been so nervous as when he rings Samantha’s bell. She denies it and tries to push Oliver away, but it doesn’t take long before she admits what Oliver already knew since the first second he put his eyes on that boy: William is his son.

Samantha tells him about Moira’s offer and tells him she doesn’t want him in her son’s life. Oliver tells her he’s not the same man, he’s about to get married with the love of his life, but Samantha is insistent she doesn’t want anything to do with them. Not with his mom, not with his fiancée.

It’s Monday afternoon and William is not home, but there are pictures everywhere and Oliver can see himself in his son.  _ His son. _ He thought a million times about having children in his many years. It was always something he assumed it would happen down the line, but it never felt right with Laurel or Sara. And when he met Felicity, she made her opinion very clear. He would love to have children with her, it’s one of the things he dreams the most, but he agrees with Felicity that it is best to not have any just to lose them once they time travel.

He remembers little Rebecca, Tommy’s daughter in his second life, who he saw growing up and then disappeared completely in their other life. Tommy and Laurel had two boys in their last life, but it was not the same, neither of them were Rebecca. Oliver’s not sure if Rebecca would ever be born again or if she was lost forever. Sometimes, especially when he’s with Tommy, he finds himself missing the girl, and she wasn’t even his daughter. He can’t imagine what they’d go through if they lost a child. So, Oliver put that dream away. He had Felicity and he could babysit Tommy’s or Diggle’s children if he ever felt like being around kids.

And now Samantha is right there, saying he has a son in this life. Something he didn’t think was possible.

Oliver leaves her house, saying he’ll be in contact and spends the entire way to Starling City trying to figure out what he is going to do now. He can just go back to his home, tell Felicity an excuse and try to forget about all of this, but he knows this would be disingenuous of him. He needs to tell Felicity, not only because they’ve been together for almost eight years and she’d see his lie miles away, but because he needs to talk to someone about this and she’s his best friend.

“Are you finally going to tell me what’s going on?” Felicity asks him during dinner that night.

“I found out something today,” he says, looking down to his plate, taking a bite to buy him some time, Felicity has dropped her fork, staring at him with her eyebrows risen.  “I have a son,” he blurts out.

He spent the last few hours trying to come up with the best way to deliver the news and got nowhere. He thought of going slowly, telling her about Samantha, but in the end maybe being straightforward is best. He doesn’t know. Felicity just looks at him without saying anything, like she’s trying to understand what he’s saying.

“From before,” Oliver completes, “I’m not sure how old he is. Samantha – that’s his mom – and I had a thing back when I was dating Laurel in my first life. She got pregnant, but told me she had a miscarriage,” he tells Felicity, “I had no idea. I swear, Felicity, I didn’t know.”

“What now?” she asks, her voice is small and her eyes are down to her plate, not looking at him.

“I don’t know. I can’t… I can’t be a father to him,” Oliver says, voicing his own worries, “Samantha says she doesn’t want me in his life, doesn’t want my family’s influence. And I’m not sure I even should… Five more years and we’ll go back in time, what happens here? Do we disappear? Do we die?”

It’s not the first time they’ve debated this question. If their timeline disappears with them when they go back or if it continues without them. If it’s just their mind that goes back but a version of them stays there. There’s no answer, of course, this is something they can never find out.

“So you’re just going to ignore that you have a son?” Felicity says, her voice getting louder and her eyes meeting his for the first time. Oliver expected to see the hurt in them, but the rage he sees in her takes him by surprise. “Just because you don’t know what happens you are going to abandon him?”

“That’s not what I meant!” he defends himself, “He doesn’t even know about me. I’m protecting him from getting hurt.”

“By making him grow up without a dad?!” Felicity screams and Oliver flinches, realizing why Felicity is angry about that possibility.

“I don’t know, Felicity! What should I do? I didn’t think I’d ever be a dad, I don’t know how to do this.”

“Then learn!” she says, her loud voice showing up, “If he exists here, he is going to exist in your next life as well, Oliver. Whatever happens with us, he deserves a chance to meet his father and you should fight to be in his life instead of running away.”

Felicity gets up, bringing her plate with her to the kitchen and leaving Oliver alone. He waits five seconds and follow her when she doesn’t come back. Felicity is staring at the counter, looking nowhere like she’s still in shock. Oliver slowly approaches her, seeing her mouth is starting to tremble and her eyes are full of tears. Her anger from a few minutes seems to have given place to sadness.

“I’m sorry, Felicity,” he says, “Please tell me what you are thinking.”

“What’s his name?” she asks suddenly, turning to him and cleaning her eyes.

“William,” he sighs and takes his phone from his pocket, showing her a picture he sneakily took from one of the photographs at Samantha’s house, “This is him. He seems happy.”

Felicity nods and one tear runs down her cheek, but she smiles to him, taking the phone in her hand and zooming in the picture, looking at William.

“He’s cute,” she declares and gives him the phone back, “You should be there for William. Samantha might not want you in his life now, but it’s because she doesn’t know you. Not anymore,” she says, “You are going to be a great dad, Oliver. I’ve always known that.”

Oliver smiles at that, looking at the picture again. He’s scared, he can’t remember the last time he’s been so scared. What if William doesn’t like him? What if Samantha doesn’t change her mind? But he knows that Felicity is right, William deserves to know about him and he should fight to get to be in his son’s life. To prove himself worthy.

“Okay. You’re right, I should call Samantha,” Oliver says finally, “I want to be there for William, I really do. Do you think she’ll let him come to our wedding? Maybe I can take him out before to meet him better…”

He hasn’t let himself think about it too much. Since he found out about William, Oliver hasn’t known what to do. His instinct is to push away and so he couldn’t think about what would it be like to be a dad. He locked these thoughts a long time ago and he finds that they were just below surface waiting to be freed. All he dreamed about doing with his children, all the places he could take his son and the lessons he could teach, things he thought he would never be able to do and now.

Oliver is so excited about the prospect of knowing William that he doesn’t notice Felicity’s eyes getting more distant each word. Her eyes continue to be red, but she’s no tear is falling and he thinks the worst is over. But, as they move down to the living room and Oliver sits on the sofa, Felicity doesn’t sit next to him. She’s standing up, arms crossed, frozen in place and staring blank into the wall.

“I can’t do this,” Felicity whispers when Oliver stops talking, “I can’t…”

Oliver stops to look at her more carefully and notices Felicity’s legs are trembling. Her eyes reach his and he sees all the tears waiting to fall. Felicity doesn’t say anything else, turning away from Oliver and moving upstairs to their room.

Oliver doesn’t wait to follow her and finds her sitting in the border of the bed, hugging Scully tightly.

“Hey,” he says, trying to keep his voice as soft as he can, sitting next to her, “What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry, Oliver,” she sighs and shakes her head, “I don’t think I can do that. I can’t see you with your son, I can’t take it.”

“I know it’s going to take some time to get used to the idea…”

“No,” she cuts him, “I don’t want to see that. It just… It hurts too much,” she confesses.

She doesn’t need to explain further. Oliver knows what having children means to Felicity and he imagined she’d be hurt he had a child when she lost her baby and had decided to never go through that again. It’s why he was worried she’d be hurt by this news.

“Okay, then forget everything. I won’t see William,” he tells her, touching her arm.

“What? No!” She all but yells, making Scully jump away from her lap, “I don’t want that, Oliver. I meant what I said, William deserves to know his dad and I’d never get in the way of that.”

“What are you saying then? I won’t invite him to the wedding if you want, Felicity, I can meet him without you…”

“This would never work,” she says, “He deserves to fully be in your life, Oliver. He deserves to have a full family and not have a stepmom who can’t even look at him.”

“I’ll do whatever it’s best for you,” Oliver tells her, trying to understand where Felicity is going with this train of thought.

“I think we should call off the wedding,” she whispers.

Oliver drops his hand at that. He doesn’t understand. They’ve been planning this wedding for years, they’ve been together for almost a decade. How would calling it off change anything?

“You need time,” Oliver says, trying to come to terms to what she’s saying, “I can understand that. We can marry whenever you want, I don’t care.”

“No, Oliver,” she says, her voice breaking at his name, “I don’t think we should get married at all.”

Felicity is fully crying and Oliver finally realizes what is happening, she’s breaking up with him. Of all the possibilities he went through in the last couple days, he didn’t consider that at all. He knew Felicity wouldn’t be happy about it, but to actually break up? He can’t even imagine his life without Felicity by his side.

“Felicity, please…” he begs her, but when he looks at her, she’s removing the ring that’s been in her finger for over two years and handing it to him.

Oliver feels his heart breaking and all words leave his body. This can’t be happening.

 

~~

 

_ September 27th, 2015 _

They were supposed to be getting married. Instead here she is, packing all her things and making sure she hasn’t forgotten anything in their apartment. Oliver’s apartment now. Felicity’s heart clenches when she looks one last time to the bedroom, checking once more if she has everything. She knows she won’t have the courage necessary to come back even if she needs to.

She goes down the stairs and finds Oliver there. He is staring at her things, the saddest look in his face. He looks up when he sees her in the room and she has to remind herself that she can’t go and comfort him right now. It doesn’t matter how much his puppy eyes beg her to reconsider, she’s made her decision.

“Felicity,” Oliver whispers and Felicity finds herself shaking her head before he even completes his thoughts.

She knows what he’s going to say, they’ve been through that. For the last two weeks, since she’s found out about William, they’ve talked about it a million times. And it doesn’t matter how much her heart wants to stay next to Oliver and how many promises he makes, Felicity knows she has to do the right thing for all of them. Marrying him would just delay the pain. The last decade or so next to Oliver had been a dream, but, unfortunately, they all have to wake up someday.

“Text me when you arrive in Vegas,” he tells her. “Please,” he completes when he sees Felicity is about to deny it.

She nods because she knows that, even if she doesn’t, her mother will. Donna was not pleased by Felicity’s decision to call of her wedding. More than displeased, she couldn’t understand it. No one could, really. The day after she had announced it, all her friends called, most of them asking what had Oliver done. Even Moira had called demanding to know what happened and trying to fix it, only to become as cold as she used to be in their last life. Any consideration for Felicity dropping immediately.

Thea had tried to talk Felicity out of it, only to get so angry she had been ignoring any of Felicity’s text for the last week. Felicity thinks it’s fair. She’s been practically family for Thea for years and now just told her she’d be moving out instead of marrying her brother. Thea has every right to be angry at her. Hell, even  _ she _ is angry at herself now. It’s not like she wants to be this way, if she could, she would just accept William in their life with open arms and be happy that Oliver gets to be a dad. She’d marry the man she loves and be a good stepmom to his son.

But she can’t.

She can’t stop feeling her heart being ripped out of her skin every time William is mentioned. She can’t stop herself from hacking Samantha’s computer and seeing all pictures of them, seeing how much William resembles a young Oliver and thinking about all the non-existent children she had imagined in her head and that would never be. She can’t stop the jealousy she feels when she thinks of Samantha or of Oliver. She can’t stop remembering the baby she was going to have with Billy and never had the chance to grow before disappearing. She can’t stop thinking about a little girl who’d give everything to have her father stay at home with her and her mom.

It’s not fair to Oliver. It’s not his fault he had William all those years before and only learned now. But it’s not her fault either that she feels this way. She can’t erasure her pain and she’s not going to make herself go through that, she doesn’t have to.

She’s not going to hurt herself by staying. And she’s not going to hurt Oliver by getting in the middle of his family.

“Ready to go?” Digg asks her, showing up at the door.

He’s going to give drive her to the airport, being the only friend who fully supported her in her decision. John doesn’t understand it either – and made his opinion known – but he knows Felicity can make her own choices and doesn’t have to explain them to anyone. Felicity is going to miss all of her friends, but she’s going to miss John the most. She almost let herself be convinced that she could move out without changing city, but, in the end, she knows this is the best choice. She won’t ever be able to let go of Oliver with him so close to her.

And he deserves to have the chance to move on too without her around.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Felicity tells Diggle, getting her purse and the suitcases she’s taking with her. She turns to Oliver, who is still watching her closely, “I guess this is goodbye.”

He just looks at her and says everything without any word at all.

Stay. We can work this out. I’ll miss you. Please don’t go. You’re hurting me.

I love you.

She feels a tear runs through her cheek and she closes her eyes, breathing to steady herself. She opens them when she feels Oliver’s hand in her arm, reaching for her, one last time. She looks into his eyes and tries to tell him all she’s feeling.

I’m so sorry. I wish I could. I just want you to be happy.

“Goodbye,” she whispers to him and turns to Diggle, not allowing herself to look back again.

I love you too.

 

~~

 

_ March 19th, 2016. _

#GirlPower it reads in Sara’s new added picture on Facebook. Sara smiles at the camera holding her niece in a Wonder Woman onesie, while Laurel smiles at her side, her hand carefully on Rebecca’s back. Next to them, Dinah, Lyla and Felicity all laugh, seeing perfectly happy.

It’s the first picture of Felicity he’s seen since the breakup. The first  _ new _ picture that is, he’s looked at their old pictures a million times since. He has stalked through her Facebook searching for new things, only to find it completely empty. Oliver tells himself he needs to let go and move forward, Felicity made it clear that she’s not going to change her mind and the only thing he can give her now is time and space.

He knows she’s okay. They have many of the same friends and, while they try to avoid talking about Felicity with him – either because it’s awkward or because they don’t want to hurt him, he doesn’t know – something always escapes. Felicity is living in Coast City, sharing an apartment with Sara and Scully, whom she took with her, and has opened a small business. It’s nothing like what Smoak Tech used to be, but it seems to be making enough money for a living. And, during the night, Felicity created her own all girl vigilante team, with both Sara and Dinah, with some occasional help of Lyla.

Oliver is proud of her. He sent her a few text messages in the last six months and she answered all of them politely, but hasn’t started any conversation. He has whined about that to Digg, who just advised him to let go and leave Felicity in the past. Oliver had lived life after life, being able to leave his past relationships behind – even some of his friends – and move on, but just the thought of doing so with Felicity makes his heart hurt. He misses her so much.

He even got on a plane to see her, right after she got out of Vegas and decided she’d stay in Coast City, but it had only made things worse. Felicity had tears in her eyes when she saw him and said she thought it was easier if she didn’t see him, telling him this was exactly why she had gone away from Starling City.

“Go spend time with your son, Oliver, William needs you, not me,” she said.

So, Oliver did exactly that, he went back to the city and didn’t try to see her again. Which left him with only pictures to see whenever he missed seeing her face. He got promoted by his mom to be VP, as Felicity has left her job as well, and tried to get the company stable as his mom confessed her wish to run for mayor of Starling.

And he got William, he thinks as the doorbell rings and he turns his phone off to open it. Samantha and William are behind it, Oliver knows before even opening it. He called Samantha for the first time before Felicity had even left, when he was still trying to convince her everything would work out. It hadn’t between them, but at least he got Samantha to let him meet William for the first time. And now, after six months, she had agreed on leaving William with him for one night.

“Hey, buddy, how are you?” Oliver asks as he open the door to a nervous Samantha and William.

William is a bit of a shy kid and it’s still getting used to the idea of having a father. While he’s okay with playing with Oliver, he only started actually talking to him after the third time they were meeting. Right now, William mostly liked to ask Oliver things, trying to understand who exactly his father was, hardly ever giving information about himself. Oliver respects his space and tries to answer everything, sharing stories with his son.

A few hours later, Oliver is cooking dinner while William watches him and tries to help, the kid seems very interested in assisting his father and, eventually, slips and, for the first time, calls Oliver “dad”.

Even though he wishes Felicity was next to him for all of that, a part of Oliver is glad she insisted he went after William and didn’t give up on him. He’s new at being a dad and still has a lot to learn, just now starting to have some more responsibility over William, but he already loves his son so much. He knows, whatever happened, it was worth if it meant he got to have his kid in his life.

 

~~

 

_ November 17th, 2018. _

Why are baby clothes the cutest thing ever? Felicity debates that very question while she finds herself mesmerized by a particularly small pair of shoes in some store. She’s come all the way to Starling City to meet Elaine Diggle, John’s baby daughter, for the first time just to find out the little onesie she bought was too small for her. Lyla and John tried to say Elaine had been a big baby and babies actually grow up very fast in that stage, but Felicity knows the truth is she took way too long to come meet their daughter and Elaine wasn’t a newborn anymore. This is her own fault and Felicity knows it, which is why she’s in a mall again, aiming to buy something that will suit Elaine.

She’s not sure which she was avoiding more, meeting yet another baby or coming to Starling City again. It’s been three years since she’s moved away, but she can count on her hand how many times she had the courage to step back in the city. No matter how long she spent away from it, she can’t deny no other city ever felt so much like home. Which is why she hates coming there so much.

Felicity has just decided on a cutesy yellow dress and steps out of the store, ready to call an Uber, when she hears a laugh that paralyzes her entire body. She doesn’t need to turn to confirm her thoughts, it was better if she didn’t, but her body betrays her and she’s seeking him until her eyes find the source of laughter. Not five steps from where she is, Oliver is seated in a table on the outside of a restaurant, his arms thrown around a boy, his smile spreading through his entire face. He’s looking the other way, to the woman sitting directly in front of him – Samantha.

William is saying something, which Felicity would be able to hear if she tried but she doesn’t. She just stares at this perfect picture of a happy family and let it sink in her heart. The exact reason she hadn’t want to come to Starling.

It’s wrong to be jealous. She’s the one who broke up with him and claimed she wanted him to be happy. So, he’s doing exactly that. If anything, she should be happy he listened to her.

The rational part of her brain might tell her to be content with her decisions, but her heart doesn’t stop screaming. She keeps imagining Oliver looking at Samantha the same way he looked at her and everything inside her burns. Felicity takes a breath in and turns her eyes back to her phone, ready to do what she does best, run away.

She goes to Diggle’s home and spends time with baby Elaine, trying not to notice how much easier it becomes to be around children every new time she does it. She tries to take the baby in her arms and not think of Oliver holding babies.

Later, when the jealousy passes and Felicity can evaluate her feelings better, she realizes it’s not sadness she feels. It’s regret. It’ll take her more than one night to realize everything she regrets, but in the end, it doesn’t matter. She’s lost her chance.

She’s lost everything.

 

~~

 

_ December 31st, 2020. _

Oliver plays with the phone in his hand, unsure about what he should do. A text message pops in his screen, it’s William sending a selfie of him being bored. His son is spending the holidays with his mom and her new husband’s family and William has made it clear that he’d rather be with his dad. If this was any other year, Oliver would try to convince Samantha to let William stay with him, like he usually does during winter break, but it’s 2020. Oliver doesn’t know what will happen to him and he doesn’t want William to be there in case he just disappears from this reality. If this happens, it will be good that William has Samantha and Kevin, who William might not be fond of right now, but Oliver knows he’ll get used to eventually.

It’s going to be hard going back again this time, Oliver thinks, harder than before. At any other time, he’d been anxious to do things right, to change his mistakes. But now Oliver just feel aversion when he thinks of going back without Felicity by his side. It’ll be good to meet William earlier, but he likes his son the way he is now and he’d rather have the chance to see his son become a teenager. It took a long time for William to open up and fully accept him as a dad, and now Oliver will lose the relationship they’ve formed, having yet to convince Samantha that he’s worthy of being in his son’s life.

He’s going to do it, of course. He can’t imagine his life anymore without William in it. But he just wishes he could stay in this timeline. It’s not perfect, far from it, but he doesn’t want it to be undone.

“Why are you moping there all alone?” Thea suddenly shows up in the door of the room he’s been standing for the last minutes. “Mom’s asking where you are, it’s almost midnight already.”

“I’m coming,” he answers, “Just seeing some pictures of William.”

“And debating whether you should text Felicity?” Thea asks, rolling her eyes, “Come on, Ollie, it’s been five years and you still get this lost look every time you’re thinking about her. There are a lot of nice women out there, go meet them!” She tries to sound excited, but just sighs and leaves when Oliver doesn’t move.

He doesn’t want to know about other women. He’s not going to pretend he’s been celibate for five years, he tried to move on, he truly did, but it’s difficult to be content with anything when he knows what it’s like loving and being loved by Felicity.

_ How are you? _ , he types in his phone and it’s so ridiculous but he sends it anyway. Trying to swallow his fear, he sends another text,  _ Will I see you next time? _

He thinks of just turning the screen off and going away so he doesn’t have to stare at his phone waiting for an answer, but before he can do any of that her text comes through.

_ I don’t know.  _ He doesn’t even know how to answer that. At least it’s not a no, but it’s very different from their last time, planning on finding each other.

_ By my calculations, we’re waking up later every time and there’s a pattern around it. I’m pretty sure we’re going to wake up in the end of 2011 this time. You should already be in Russia by then and it will probably be able to get home by yourself. _

Oliver reads her message over and over again. He had woken up around 2006 or 2007 every time and didn’t really think he’d wake up so much later next time around.

_ You don’t have to worry about me _ , he answers. He doesn’t want to be a burden for her.

He sees Felicity typing for a long time and he wonders what it’s taking her so long.

_ It might be our last life. If my progression is right, the next part would be after today’s date. I don’t know if it’ll take us to the future, if I’m wrong or if it’ll just stop… I think it might be the end. You should spend it with your family. With William and Samantha :) _

Oliver wants to answer that he doesn’t want to spend it with his family or with Samantha. If this is his last life, he wants to spend it with her. But he can’t force her to be next to him. Felicity can make her own choices and she chose to be away from him.

_ I hope you find your happiness. You know where to find me if you need me.  _ He writes her and turns off his phone, finally walking out of the room he’d been. He hears some countdown coming from the end of the hallway.

Happy fucking new year.

 

~~

 

As the year changes, Felicity stares at the text message she’s received from Oliver, a single tear escaping her eyes.

She’s alone at home, choosing not to go to any of the places she’d been invited. Most of her real friends were in Starling anyway, she was alone in Coast City. And, as soon as she wakes up, she’d be alone at Gotham City.

Maybe that’s exactly what should happen. Her last life closing just like her first life. Maybe this entire thing was a sign that she should’ve stayed in the city, accepted Mike’s proposal and left Oliver alone. Make her own friends. Everything in the right place.

Not bothering to try to stay awake, Felicity lays in bed and waits to fall asleep. Let’s just get over with that already. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooooooo, that happened. I hate writing break ups and after that I vowed never to write any other again. It kinda sucks but ugh, it had to happen. Hope you guys understand both POVs!
> 
> Some notes:
> 
> 1 - Baby Elaine’s name was taken from Legacy ‘verse by ash818. 
> 
> 2 - I don’t understand at all how the show is calculating William’s age, recent interviews claim he’s 12 in the new season, which would mean he was born in 2005. That doesn’t work for me, so I’m ignoring it. For the purposes of this fic, William was conceived in early 2007 and born later in the same year (after Oliver was already on the island). 
> 
> 3 - The calculations about time travel are reliable in-universe but NOT outside it, considering I’m nowhere near as good in math as Felicity is supposed to be. If you’re actually good with numbers, don’t try to check it at home, okay. Let me believe I got this right. 
> 
> Come yell at me in comments if the chapter broke your heart! As always, comments fuel my soul, so don't let me starving or I'll become souless!


	8. The Fifth Life

 

_ December 20th, 2011. _

Felicity opens her eyes ready to find exactly what she does. Her alarm rings through the small bedroom and she quickly makes it stop, sitting on her bed and checking the date. As she expected, she’s in the end of 2011. Almost in 2012. A Tuesday, she sighs as she realizes, this means work. Felicity could just call in sick, she’s pretty sure her boss wouldn’t mind, but why delay the inevitable? So, she just dresses herself in one of her old clothes, put her curly hair on a low ponytail and leaves.

It doesn’t feel like her reality was ripped apart like the other times. It just feels like a dream. Like she’s living a memory of something that happened too long ago. In a way, this is exactly what is happening.

It’s been so long since she even stepped in Gotham, but somehow she still knows the way by heart. Like she’s never left. Maybe that’s it, she thinks, she’s just going back to her life and ignore everything that happened in her other lives.

By the time she parks her car and walks into the elevator, Felicity’s mind has settled on her new reality. She breathes in, breathes out and smiles to her coworkers. She passes through her ex-boyfriend, Mike, who she hasn’t seen in decades, and says hi. Images of his proposal pop up in her brain, suddenly shifting to another proposal. An almost wedding. Felicity makes an effort to ignore what the memory does to her heart and focus on the people around her. Her job.

It’s hard to focus on such boring, stupid tasks, but she does her best. She studies her emails, texts and phone calls, learn who she is in that timeline and promises herself she’s not leaving this time. She’s going to continue her life like it’s supposed to be.

It takes her hours before she breaks and searches for him. She’s already home, eating takeaway and bored out of her mind. Her laptop is right next to her, and she can’t stop her itching fingers from doing what they need. Hacking satellites and face-recognition systems, searching for Oliver’s face all over the world just to make sure he’s okay. And if, while the search’s going on, she also checks to see if William exists in this timeline, who can blame her, really?

It’s not like it’s the first time her heart has betrayed her.

Finding his birth certificate doesn’t surprise her, but the fact that It doesn’t really hurt her does. Interesting, she thinks, and wonders how will she react if she finds Oliver in Central City already.

When her computer pings and shows Oliver in Russia, walking down a street just a couple hours before, Felicity let’s out the air she was holding and then frowns when she realizes he’s still in Russia. Hasn’t he woken up? Why did he not go back home yet? She feels the urge to find his phone somehow and call asking these exact questions, but manages to stop herself. It’s none of her business, not anymore.

Trying to move her mind away from it, she starts her search for Sara and the League of Assassins, which should provide enough of a challenge that she’s distracted. Felicity might have no plans to go back to Starling City and her old life, but that doesn’t mean she’s leaving Sara in Nanda Parbat with no choice at all.

 

~~

 

It’s cold when Oliver wakes up. He’s in a bed, so he knows before he even opens his eyes that he’s not in Lian Yu, he’s in Russia. He’s not surprised about it, Felicity’s math is rarely wrong. The thought of Felicity makes him sigh and get up. He wonders if she’s already back in time or not because of the time zones.

Knowing he can’t afford to waste time thinking about Felicity and lives that won’t come back, Oliver tries to make sense of when he is. It doesn’t take much effort to find out, he just talks to Anatoly for a few minutes before he understands he was still in the beginning of his hunt for Kovar, having just joined the Bratva. Anatoly might have been a friend once, but Oliver has no intention of repeating his time in the Russian mob.

Despite the cold, Oliver finds himself wandering through the streets of Moscow. He’s not sure he’s ready to go back to his life in Starling just yet. Last time, when he woke up in Lian Yu, he made his best to go back home, to get out of the island and find Felicity again. Right now, he just feels like drifting. Oliver knows what awaits him, his worried mother and sister, expectations and people finding his behavior weird. It’s not much different from his first time back, not really, but he doesn’t have a mission to consume his mind now. He’ll need to kill Malcolm again, as he’s done in every life so far and history has shown that his death brings a lot more gain than losses, and assemble a team again. Although once he avoided working with other people as much as he could, now Oliver couldn’t imagine working alone now.

It’d take time until he got his life on hold again. If he at least had Felicity on his side, it wouldn’t be so bad. But she made her choice and Oliver respected her too much to insist. It makes him frustrated that he can’t have both William and Felicity in his life, but he knows better than try to find her only to have the same discussion again.

The only thing left for him to do is find William. He’d still be four years-old. Oliver sighs as he thinks of the thirteen years old boy that he last saw, it’d take them years to be in the same point again. But Oliver would do everything again how many times were necessary.

Deciding he couldn’t avoid going home forever, Oliver calls a cab and goes straight to the American embassy. His family is waiting for him.

 

~~

 

_ January 27th, 2012. _

Felicity leaves her job earlier that Friday. She’s been doing extra time in the last few weeks and it’s not like her boss could complain considering he had left before her anyway. She tried her best to get into her boring desk job, but truth is Felicity’s tired. Not because she’s been doing too much or because her job provides any challenge, but because there is absolutely nothing interesting in it. She can’t remember how she handled doing that very thing for so many years.

Sure, tracking Sara had been fun. She had to wait until Sara was out of Nanda Parbat for a mission to actually contact her and, even though doing so would be very dangerous and possibly put her under the League’s radar, it only took Felicity about three weeks to do that. Of course, a random anonymous phone call didn’t convince Sara to leave the League, Felicity didn’t expect it, but now Sara knew how to contact her or Oliver. Sara hadn’t. And the fact that no one of the League tried to kill her makes Felicity think Sara hasn’t old anyone about it either. Now, the only thing she could do was wait until Sara was ready, if the time ever comes.

That leaves Felicity with nothing to do. Searching about her old friends just makes her sad. Searching about Oliver is even worse, she doesn’t want to become a stalker ex who is unable to move on. Felicity sighs as she reflects on her life and parks her car back in her apartment building.

Because there isn’t anything – or anyone – expecting her back home, Felicity decides to take a walk around her neighborhood instead of going up to her apartment. She wanders through the streets, not sure of where she’s going, and she finds herself in front of the local synagogue. One of her reasons to buy that specific apartment was because it was so close to the shul, but Felicity can count on one hand how many times she actually stepped there. She can’t remember if she even went there during her last Yom Kippur in Gotham, it had been so long ago, so many lives away.

Some people arrive to the synagogue and Felicity realizes Shabbat service should be starting soon. It has been even longer since she observed Shabbat. Before she can overthink it, Felicity follows the people going in and enters the temple. She looks around, seeing fellow Jews talking to each other and noticing the inside of the synagogue, she sits close to some other people and tries to fit in.

It doesn’t take long before the service starts and, while they pray, Felicity realizes she doesn’t have to try to fit in at all. This is her people, she belongs there. She finds the prayers come to her easily, like they were just below surface waiting to be remembered, and the community welcomes her without question – a woman even remembers seeing her during the last Yom Kippur, but that was in Felicity’s first life and she herself doesn’t recall it.

She misses her friends and she misses Starling City, but each time Felicity breathes in she feels more at home that she has in those last few years since she’s moved away. As the service goes on, she slowly opens herself, lets the words touch her and enter in contact with her religion and God. And, with some surprise, she realizes she accepts her life. She doesn’t understand the time traveling and why did she have to suffer so many losses, and it doesn’t stop hurting when she remembers them, but she accepts what’s happened. That’s her life and she can’t change her own past.

It’s not a magical cure to her problems and maybe parts of her still resents that God let it happen to her. But she reminds herself of her history and knows she’ll survive. Felicity was given many chances of lives, something a lot of people would beg for, and she can’t waste it by being focused on what she lost. She’ll always remember it, but she will live.

And when she thinks over, she had wonderful experiences she would never had if she stayed in Gotham. Maybe things didn’t work out with Oliver, but she was much happier with him than if she had accepted Mike’s proposal and married him. She created Smoak Tech, she was Queen Consolidated’s VP for years, she saved hundreds – maybe thousands - of lives between Team Arrow and her own Coast City team. Her life has been worth it all and she’s grateful for all of her experiences, they’ve made her who she is. 

She doesn’t know where this last life is taking her, but she has faith on her side and embraces her future.

 

~~

 

_ December 25th, 2012. _

“Did it have to be on Christmas?” Roy complains as the team starts surveillance.

“No one if forcing you to be here,” Oliver responds in a harsh tone of voice, only to get an eye roll as an answer.

It did have to be in that day, after all, and Roy knows it very well. William is going to arrive the next morning to spend ten days with Oliver. Entire ten days. It’s the longest he’s spent since Oliver arrived in this life and Oliver is definitely not going to suit up and leave William with someone else during these days. And Oliver wouldn’t wait almost two weeks to stop criminals because Roy didn’t want to do it during Christmas.

Of course, Roy doesn’t understand the gravity of it. Oliver knows from his last life that what seems like a drug business now will turn out to be about human trafficking. The sooner they stop it, the better. He wants to turn the year knowing he has done a good job to protect the people in his town.

Roy doesn’t say anything else after that. Diggle is focused on what he sees in front of him and, judging from his friend’s expression, Oliver thinks John too is starting to suspect there is more to this business than just drugs. They had no proof until now, but enough signs. Oliver assesses the place and tries to remember any detail from what happened in the last life.

In the end, it works out. No one is expecting anything so soon after Christmas and the criminals are taken by surprise. Everyone is released without any accident and SCPD arrives in time to arrest everyone.

“The cat,” a woman tells him right after Oliver opens the room she’s been locked in. “He’s in the closet,” she completes, and then another woman pulls her by hand and takes her out of the house, where they’ll be safer.

Something sparks in Oliver’s memory and he knows what she’s talking about immediately. After he makes sure every room is secure, he opens the closet of the same place the woman left and, in it, finds a very small kitten. It’s Scully, he knows as soon as she meows to him. She’s smaller than he’s ever seen, Oliver suspects she’s not even a month-old yet and he wonders if her mother is around somewhere in the house.

“What are you doing with a kitten?” Roy asks as he finds Oliver standing in front of the open closet, holding Scully. Oliver groans as an answer as he gets out of there, making sure the kitten is safe in his arms.

Diggle only looks at the cat once and decides not to question it, it’s been a long day and there are a lot of more important things to worry about. Roy tries to make a joke about the vigilante taking care of a kitten, but no one is the mood for it and soon he gives up, choosing to go home as soon as he changes out of his suit.

Oliver stays in the Foundry, just with Scully, who doesn’t stop meowing since she was rescued. Oliver is pretty sure she’s hungry, but he doesn’t have any cat food there or in his apartment and all stores are closed – not only because it’s Christmas, but because it’s 3 a.m. Not an hour later, he’s home with a kitten. And if a pet store close to him is suddenly missing formula for cats, Oliver is sure money will be found in its place.

Scully purrs in his chest after she’s fed and falls asleep in there. He hasn’t seen her in years, not since Felicity took her to Coast City. As Oliver takes a picture of Scully with his phone, he wonders if he should send it to Felicity. Part of him feels petty about her taking Scully last life, maybe he should have her custody in this one. But, if he’s honest, he’d accept any excuse to talk to her.

If Felicity decides she wants to see Scully, she’d have to come to Starling again. He’d get to see her.

It’d be so easy. He knows her number, searching for it was one of the first things he did. Finding it was not hard, so Oliver assumes she didn’t try to hide it, but he never called her. If she wanted to talk to him, she would. 

And she could say the same about him, he sighs.

“Do you miss her too, Scully?” He asks the small cat, even though Scully doesn’t have any memories of her other life. And, even if she does, she can’t answer, being a cat. He pets her head and she purrs again.

William is arriving in just a few hours. He trusts Oliver a lot easier in this life than before, probably because he was just four years-old when he met his father. But it’s still a new relationship and Samantha is still wary of him, waiting for him to mess things up. Oliver knows he won’t, he knows William – has known him for more years than Samantha now – and knows how to be his father.

Oliver looks at Scully, who walks down to his feet and lays next to him, and can’t stop thinking of Felicity. He’s itching to call her. He always is, in some ways, but now it feels even more. It’s been one year in this life, six years without her. He just wants to hear her voice once more. To know how she is.

Before he can regret it, he takes another picture of Scully, who’s fallen asleep again.  _ Look who I found _ , he writes and texts her the picture. It’s been a year since he searched for her phone and it might not even be the same number, he doesn’t check. Oliver turns off his phone and tries to sleep, the next day William would be there and he’d focus on his son.

It’s Felicity’s turn to make a move.

 

~~

 

_ January 4th, 2013. _

Felicity’s hands shake as she steps into the airport. Not any airport, Starling’s. Her phone is in her hand, Oliver’s message is opened on it, she’s been reading it non-stop for ten days. She should just have answered it like a normal person, text him back, even call him. Planned on doing so, rehearsed what she would say in her mind, but nothing felt right.

She was supposed to take a flight back to Gotham – after spending two weeks with her mom in Vegas – but despite her sanity, she found herself paying the company to change her ticket and go to Starling instead. She doesn’t even know if he wants to see her. For the last year or so, Felicity made her mind that Oliver would hate her. At least resent her for leaving. Just because he sent her a picture of Scully didn’t mean anything. Maybe he just wants someone to talk to, they had been friends for years after all. Maybe he just wants her to know Scully is okay, knowing how much she loved her cat. 

Felicity feels her anxiety rising as she waits for her luggage and tries to plan what she’s doing. The only thing she knows for sure is that she needs to see him. It’s nothing new, Felicity knows this feeling very well, every once and awhile Felicity finds herself suddenly missing Oliver so much she considers her options. But she’s never acted on it. There was no need to complicate his life, she justified to herself.

And then he initiated contact. And Felicity found that this argument doesn’t really hold up.

The last year has been good for her, in weird ways. She got promoted and found out that it didn’t change anything, Wayne Enterprises will never be where she belongs. Neither is Gotham. She made a couple friends in the synagogue and tried to go to services more, if not every Shabbat at least on special occasions. She could be satisfied by this life, but she isn’t truly happy.

She knows what true happiness looks like. And she knows where to find it. And it’s so tempting, Felicity felt herself forgetting why she is denying it to herself.

Not that she can really forget it. Her fears come all to her sometimes, but lately they’ve been more about Oliver moving on than about William. He’s living in the same apartment they’ve lived for years, this has to mean something. At least it’s what she tells herself while she gets a cab and waits to arrive. God, she hasn’t even warned Oliver she’s going there.

What if someone else opened the door?

Felicity puts those fears away and, when the cab arrives in the destination, she feels her heart jumping away from her chest. She’s been in Starling City since the break-up, but not there. Not in their home. She doesn’t know how Oliver can just live there, how he managed to stay living even after everything, when the entire place is made of memory of them.

There’s no doorman to the building, the security is entirely electronic and can be accessed by a passcode. Felicity takes a leap of faith and writes in the same passcode of when she used to live there. She can bypass it if it doesn’t work, but soon she hears the click of the door opening and sighs in relief. As she gets in the elevator, she immediately regrets bringing her luggage. Why didn’t she go back to Gotham before and left everything there? What would Oliver think when she showed up in his doorstep with two-week worth of luggage. Of course, this would probably be the last thing in his mind, but Felicity chooses to focus her attention in these details instead of the real reasons she had to worry.

She stops at the door. It’s her last chance to turn away and pretend this never happened.

She closes her eyes. And rings the bell.

The net few seconds last an eternity, but eventually the door opens. She’s looking down and the first thing she sees is his shoes and then hears his voice.

“Hey, you’re early!” he says as he opens the door and then Felicity hears a gasp.

She finally looks up and meets his eyes. Oliver is staring at her like she was a ghost, she doesn’t blame him because she expects she looks about the same.

“No, I’m very, very late,” she whispers and she notices her voice’s broken.

“Felicity?” Oliver asks, he’s frowning and he doesn’t look sure she’s really there or he’s imagining.

She doesn’t know how long they stand there just looking at each other’s eyes, not saying a word. Maybe it was just a few seconds, but it could have lasted an entire life, for all she knows. Oliver’s eyes are bluer than she remembered, his stubble is longer than he used to wear and his skin looks so soft Felicity has to contain the eager to touch his cheek. His mouth is still partly open from the shock and Felicity is taken aback by how strong is the memory of what his lips feel like in hers.

He moves first, his hands finding her hair and then running through her cheeks. It’s only then she realizes there’s a tear falling down her face.

“You’re here,” he whispers and, finally, he smiles. It’s a wide grin and the happiest thing she’s seen in years and Felicity smiles back.

And, in that moment, she knows she’s exactly where she’s supposed to be.

“Mom?” a voice interrupts them and Felicity turns to see a little boy showing up behind Oliver. “You’re not my mom,” he notes in a faint voice and looks to Oliver with his brows frowned.

“William,” she says before Oliver can say anything.

She doesn’t need introductions. Even if she hadn’t searched for him so many times during the years, the image of his photograph is imprinted in her mind. He’s younger here, she doesn’t suppose he’s much older than five, but Felicity recognizes him. He looks so much like a baby Oliver she thinks she’d recognize him even if this was the first time she was seeing his face. His eyes are darker, but the way they are currently narrowed to her as he tries to decipher her are so very Oliver.

“Hi, I’m Felicity,” she tells him and this answer seems to surprise the boy.

“Like the princess?” he asks, turning to Oliver and Felicity frowns at that. She doesn’t know any princess with her name.  

“Like the princess,” Oliver confirms and seems to wake up for his trance, he takes a step back so Felicity can come in the apartment.

“You’re staying?” William asks Felicity, pointing to her bag, “I have a bag too,” he tells her, “but it’s not that big because I have lots of stuff here already.”

“Speaking of that, William, you should go prepare your stuff for when your mom gets here,” Oliver tells his son and William just nods, even though he doesn’t seem very happy about it and whispers complaints as he gets out of the room.

Felicity looks around the room, noticing most things are very similar to their old house. Not everything is the same, there’s some lack of decoration and a lot more kid stuff than there used to be. But still so very much home. She smells something sweet in the house and suspects Oliver was baking something before she arrived. She walks a few steps into the kitchen and sees a small ball of orange fur walking in her direction, getting out of the kitchen.

“Baby!” she yells in happiness and goes on her knees as Scully approaches her, “Look how small you are! Oh my god, you’re the cutest baby ever.”

Scully didn’t use to be the most sociable cat in the other life, but, even though she’s never met Felicity, she doesn’t complain when she’s hugged.

“Oh, I missed you so much,” she whispers to her cat as she gives her little kisses in her head.

She feels Oliver’s presence behind her before she even turns, but she continues to have her head buried in her cat’s fur.

“She’s so tiny!” she says out loud before she can even think and Oliver laughs. “Did you miss mommy?” she asks the cat, “I found you and I’m not going anywhere now,” she says and suddenly the laugh stops.

“You aren’t?” Oliver asks and, when Felicity turns to him, she sees his eyes are sparkling with hope.

“I... I don’t know,” she answers truthfully, she doesn’t really have a plan, “I just wanted to talk to you.”

“We can talk,” he says, “Samantha is stopping by to get William soon.”

“I can leave and come back later, if you want,” she says, even though there’s nowhere she could go.

“No!” he all but screams, “Don’t go, please.”

Felicity finds that she doesn’t want to. Not ever again.

William comes running down the stairs not five seconds later. He tells her he and his dad were baking cookies, and tells Oliver to separate some so he can give them to his mom, and sits next to Felicity in the sofa, watching her with interest.

“I like your hair,” he declares to her after a minute of silence, making Felicity smile and thank him, “It’s just like the stories!”

“What stories are those?” she asks him with curiosity.

“The ones dad tells,” William explains, “He likes to tell me  _ a lot _ of stories. Some are very scary! But not the ones with Princess Felicity, when she’s in them I can tell it’s a happy story,” he seems to be proud of the fact and smiles at her, “I like happy stories more.”

Oliver chooses that time to come back and Felicity can tell he’s been overhearing the conversation because he looks extremely sheepish at that moment. He gives a cookie to Felicity and a bag full of cookies to William, telling him he has to share them with his mom. Felicity eats the cookie in silence and they stay in the sofa, as William starts to tell her about how Oliver taught him how to bake cookies and how fun it had been staying with his dad, explaining to her that he only stays with his dad in the weekends usually but his mom let him stay ten days this time and it was  _ awesome _ .

As she hears William speak, Felicity feels her smile growing bigger and her heart expanding at each word he says. Of all the realizations she’s made in the last year, after making peace with her life and her past, it’s in this moment Felicity truly knows what a fool she had been. How could she ever look at this child, who looks so much like Oliver, who tells her about his day smiling and seems so excited to have a dad, and somehow stay sad? The fact that she won’t ever have her own kid is still there in her mind, but it’s not the most important thing. When Oliver ruffles William hair and makes a comment about how happy he is to be his dad too, Felicity knows for sure that the happiness would by far outweigh any sadness.

Maybe she needed that time away to be able to think like this. Maybe she just wasted years, there’s no way to know for sure. But she doesn’t want to waste any more time.

The doorbell rings about half an hour later. Oliver opens it and William goes running at the sound of his mom’s voice. He screams goodbye to her and hugs his dad before he leaves. And then the door closes, and It’s just Oliver and Felicity in their home.

She’s still in the sofa and he sits next to her, looking with expectant eyes. Felicity stares at him and tries to find words to tell him everything that she needs to.

“I’m sorry,” she says, not knowing for that she’s apologizing exactly. For leaving, for showing up uninvited, for taking too long. “I should have talked to you sooner,” she decides.

“You needed time,” Oliver answers, like she had just been away for a couple weeks.

“I didn’t need six years,” she tells him. “I was scared and I ran away. I know it’s probably too late now and I can’t expect things to come back the way they were, but I just wanted to see you again,” she explains. “I don’t want to intrude your life or anything, I mean, I don’t know if you’re even seeing someone or even if you’re not it doesn’t mean that...”

“Felicity,” he interrupts her and touches her face, putting a lock of her hair behind her ears. “I love you,” he says with a smile, “There’s never been anyone else. Just you.”

“You’re not angry at me?” she asks him.

“Never,” he answers without taking a beat, “I wasn’t happy about it. And I wish you had stayed and we could have worked things out together, but I know you were hurt. And I don’t know what I’d do if the situation was reversed.”

“I was wrong though. Seeing you with William doesn’t hurt, not like I thought it would,” she confesses to him.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says, “You said this was going to be our last life. I don’t want to spend it away from you, Felicity. I never did, but I thought you didn’t want…”

“I want it more than anything,” Felicity whispers, “I don’t want to waste any more time, Oliver.”

He closes the space between them, joining their lips for the first time in years. Felicity closes her eyes and dives in the kiss. It may have been over a year since she woke up, but Felicity feels this life is just now starting.

“I love you,” she tells him as he moves to kiss her neck, “I love you so much.”

There’s more to be talked about. They have years to catch up and Felicity still technically lives in Gotham, but they have time. They are with each other again and this is the most important thing. The rest is the rest. They will figure out as they lay in bed later that day, too tired to do anything besides to talk, with Felicity’s head in his chest, Oliver’s hand running through her hair. Both of their hearts beating in synchrony.

Many hours later, when she falls asleep in his arms, Felicity knows she’s home. And she’s not leaving again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, happiness! There was going to be another scene after that in this chapter, but truth is I literally just finished writing this five minutes ago and if I decided to write more, you guys would have to wait one more week for an update. And I wanted to post happy things before that. So here it is. 
> 
> What did you guys think? Was breaking them up in the first place completely unnecessary and just for drama? MAYBE. But, look, you try to think what to do with SO MANY years of story, okay. It's not that easy. 
> 
> Leave kudos if you haven't yet (come on, you've read eight chapters and didn't leave a kudo? If so, why do you hate me so much?).
> 
> Leave a comment if this chapter made you feel anything at all! Tell me all about your thoughts and emotions!


	9. The Fifth Life - Part 2

_ February 15th, 2013. _

Oliver is smiling when he wakes up. It doesn’t surprise him, he’s been smiling so much this last month that he doesn’t think his past-self from his first life would even recognize him. But it’s difficult to not demonstrate his happiness when he has Felicity curled up next to him, her face resting in his naked chest, her legs tangled in his. Oliver notices that he’s almost at the end of the bed, with Felicity pushing him to his side as they slept. On Felicity’s side of the bed, Scully sleeps, occupying a much bigger space than it seems physically possible for such a small kitten. 

It’s been a great month. The best month, in fact. They’re happier in this life, he thinks, somehow. Maybe it’s just the time, they are more mature now, not only do they know the world better but they know themselves better too. But, even more important, something seems lighter about Felicity. He didn’t think this was possible before, he used to think they were as happy as they could be in the years they were together. It’s true though, some invisible weight has been lifted from her shoulders.

And he’s happier too. William comes every weekend, he adores Felicity and, although Samantha was initially worried about him introducing “some woman” to their son, Felicity met her for dinner two weeks before and got Samantha’s approval. Samantha is even considering moving to Starling after the school year ends. That didn’t happen last life and surprised Oliver, the idea makes him so happy he never wanted to consider it.

Oliver grabs his phone on the nightstand, careful not to move too much and wake Felicity up, and notices he received dozens of texts from Thea the night before and a couple calls from his mother. He’s not worried about them, he’s sure that, unlike his, Felicity’s phone hasn’t been turned off the entire night, and would have pinged if any emergency had happened involving the city or his family.

They are worried about him. It’s not entirely surprising, he hasn’t seen any of them a lot since Felicity moved there. Mostly because neither of them had been keen on leaving their room so soon. After they finally managed to stop touching each other, Oliver talked to Walter – who was the current CEO – about taking a month off and working just from home, and then went with Felicity to Gotham so she could get everything she needed and close any unfinished business she had there. But it had been two weeks since they were back in Starling and he hadn’t introduced Felicity to his family. He just wanted to keep her for himself for a little more, but it seems impossible to keep things for much longer.

_ Who is this?? Are you dating??? _ , Thea text message says, attached there is a picture of him and Felicity taken on Big Belly Burger, apparently through a window, the night before. He doesn’t even want to know how Thea has this picture or who took it.  _ Roy says that’s Felicity. WHO IS FELICITY? How does Roy know about her and I don’t? _ , her texts continue, going on a rant about him disappearing on her.

Oliver can’t answer that Roy knows about it because he’s on Team Arrow, and the first thing Felicity wanted to do in Starling that involved getting out of their apartment was to meet the Team again. They are her family too. Both Diggle and Roy seemed a little wary about Oliver inviting someone without even giving them a heads-up, but it only took them five minutes to realize that Felicity belonged there. Felicity is the true heart of the team, it might have worked for a few years without her, like some kind of mechanical pump, but it was not organic and wouldn’t last forever without her presence. 

Noticing that one of his mother’s unanswered calls dates from after Thea’s messages, he wonders if his sister has shared her latest information with their mother. Felicity has been worried about meeting his mom, especially since she’s still talking to HR about being hired to Queen Consolidated. Oliver thinks it’s ridiculous, she had been ready to be CEO in their last life before they broke up, but Felicity is worried about what others will think of her. He doesn’t insist because it doesn’t really matter in his opinion, but as he listens to his mother’s voice mail demanding he comes to dinner on Friday, he thinks they might have to tell Moira about it before she planned.

“Good morning,” Felicity mumbles as she wakes up and gets closer to him, trying to look at his phone, even though he knows she can’t read anything without her glasses on, “Any important message?”

“My mom wants me to meet her for dinner on Friday,” he tells her. “Should I come up with an excuse or we’re going?”

“Ugh, can’t you go by yourself?” she asks and Oliver just frowns at it like she’s crazy, “You do know we’ll need to do things apart eventually, right?”

They’ve been doing almost everything together for over a month, Oliver personally wouldn’t have any problem on continuing doing that. Not that they hadn’t spent any minute apart, Felicity complained it was getting a little “too symbiotic” for her and she made sure to go to the synagogue at least once a week by herself, as well as the couple of meetings she had with QC. But that was different from family dinner. Felicity is not avoiding it because she needs time for herself, she is because she’s scared of his mom.

“Come on, you said yourself you wanted to see Thea again,” he tries, “And Mom loved you last life, I don’t know why you keep trying to ignore that.”

“You say that because you didn’t see how she talked to me after we broke up,” she says in an angry voice and when he raises his eyebrows, ready to ask her what his mom had said to her, “You really don’t want to know,” she shushes him before he can ask.

“Please, I want them to meet you,” he insists, “We can’t hide from them forever. We’re lucky Thea hasn’t come bursting through the door yet.”

“Okay, you have a point.  It’s probably for the best they meet me soon and not on the day of our wedding,” she says and laughs, “Can you imagine Moira’s face if you got married with someone she didn’t even know though?”

Oliver freezes because her voice is so casual and the way she talks with so absolute certainty that they are getting married might be the most beautiful sound in the whole word. They have talked about marriage during this one month. Of course, they had. Promises and happy dreams, all set in an uncertain future. Felicity must feel his tension because she suddenly turns red and tries to hide her face.

“What?” she asks, “Did I ruin your proposal again? I mean, today is the day after all.”

“Are you serious about it?” he asks instead of focusing on her question, “Do you want to do it? For real, this time? I wasn’t going to propose now, I thought it might be too soon, it’s not even been a month…”

“It’s been twenty years, Oliver,” Felicity says, sitting down and looking at his face, “I meant what I said about not wanting to lose time. I want to marry you, just finally marry you.”

Because he lacks words to express how much he loves her at this moment, he kisses her. He is so happy and, more than anything in the world, he wants to marry her. He’s wanted to marry her for so long.

“I don’t have your ring,” he tells her, like he just now realized that. He didn’t dare to get a ring when she was away, it wouldn’t do any good to his heart, and after, well, he was too busy to think of that.

“I wore that ring for too long,” Felicity says, “I don’t want an engagement, I just want to get married already.”

She pulls him to a kiss again, taking his mind out of the ring. Oliver might have argued that he’d find her a ring, but he gets too distracted by kisses and touches. In the end, it doesn’t really matter.

 

~~

 

_ September 12th, 2013. _

Her heart skips a beat when she looks at herself at the mirror. Donna squeals behind her, sounding even happier than Felicity is feeling. She’s getting married to Oliver. Donna gets closer to her and adjusts the veil in her hair, making it fall naturally through her back and not cover her entire hair, which she had chosen to wear down this time. Her dress is not the same one she had chosen last time, it has a bit of lace on the upper part, short sleeves and it’s an A-Line model, but it’s much simpler than her old choice.

“You look so beautiful,” Donna tells her, wiping a tear off her cheek. “I’m so happy you found Oliver,” her mom continues, taking her hand and squeezing it. She smiles and Felicity can see the happiness in her mother’s eyes.

“You do look amazing, Felicity,” Thea says from the corner of the room, her voice sounding a bit shy.

Thea is still getting comfortable around her, she had gone through a couple months of distrust when they first met, but after Felicity invited her to be maid of honor, Thea seemed to have warmed up to her. They will eventually get into the same place they used to be, Felicity is sure of it. A part of Felicity misses having her other friends as her bridesmaids, but she’s still not close enough to Laurel, Sara hasn’t showed up in Starling City at all and it was too soon for them to approach Dinah. But, as she looks around the room, Felicity knows she’s not alone and she’s made new friends, she had managed to stay in contact with Miriam, one of her friends from Gotham, who was very happy to be a bridesmaid, and Samantha is also there.

Felicity would have never thought she and Samantha would become friends, but that’s what happened. Maybe it was the fact that Samantha doesn’t have many friends in Starling City either and, after she moved there with William, she ended up relying on Felicity more than she initially wanted. Felicity liked spending time with William and, as she realized after a while, Samantha is a really sweet person. She’s very protective of William and doesn’t trust the Queens at all, but she accepted Felicity with open arms. 

She looks at herself again as she breathes in. She’s ready. William chooses that moment to open the door to the room, saying everyone is ready and just waiting for them now. He immediately sees Felicity and lets a “wow” escape his mouth before approaching her, carefully touching her dress.

“You look like a real princess now,” he whispers to her, his eyes becoming so much bigger as he watches his soon-to-be stepmom.

“Thank you,” she says, looking away from the mirror to look at him, “Have you seen your dad? How is he?”

“He can’t wait, he’s been ready forever!” William says with a smile, “I’m so excited! Let’s go!”

William leaves the place running, making Samantha yell after him to slow down. Felicity smiles at both of them and checks one last time if she’s not forgetting anything. Miriam and Thea are already out of the door and Donna is staring at Felicity with tears in her eyes, Felicity grabs her mom’s hand and squeezes it once, not saying anything. She starts walking before her mother has the chance to say a word, because she doesn’t want to cry right before her wedding.

It’s happening. It’s a whole life later and so different from what she imaged, she’s not nearly as close to her team as she would like to be in this moment, but it’s still perfect. She walks in and sees Oliver standing in the chuppah, and when he turns and sees her for the first time, there are tear in his eyes and his smile is so wide she feels herself smiling even more.

The ceremony is not big, everything was arranged in a few months and only their closest friends and family are there. But, in the end, it wouldn’t make any difference, because Felicity can only see one person at this moment. The whole world around them disappears, Oliver is in front of her, saying words of love, slipping a ring on her finger and Felicity feels that her entire life was leading her to this moment. After so many years, they both step together in a new stage of sharing their lives.

 

~~

 

_ August 31st, 2015. _

Oliver hears the click of Felicity’s heels arriving before she even says anything, he considers opening his eyes and sitting on the sofa, where he’s currently lying, but soon he feels a kiss in his forehead and knows it’s too late to pretend he wasn’t just napping. Felicity steps out of her shoes and moves his leg so she can sit next to him.

“I can tell you’re awake,” she says and pokes his foot, making Oliver smile and open his eyes. “How are you feeling?”

Oliver grumbles something unintelligible, not sure himself of what he wants to say. He’s feeling horrible and not just because of the cut in his abdomen and bruised ribs. Felicity scrunches her nose and Oliver can see pity in her eyes, it only makes him sigh. He tries to sit up, but it hurts and Felicity puts her hand on his chest, making him lie again.

“Don’t be stubborn about it,” she warns him, “Come on, honey, what do you think about ordering a pizza?”

Oliver thinks of complaining, they have been ordering food for the last three days already and he’s tired of it. But just the thought of standing up to cook makes his sides start aching, and he knows better than to start a discussion with his wife about how okay he is. He doesn’t even think about suggesting that Felicity cooks dinner, he loves his wife more than anything in the world, but he’s yet to meet a worse cook. Knowing that, he just nods and Felicity immediately gets her phone to order it, probably hungry after working the entire day.

Unlike him, who just stayed home, not doing absolutely anything. Oliver hates being hurt. Not that he loves his job at QC, it only gets more boring over the years, but if he’s not working, he’d rather be at the lair, training or at least trying to do some research about what had happened last week.

Oliver had been busy with Sara showing up in town. It had taken longer than he and Felicity predicted, but eventually she got homesick and contacted him. Of course, that led to Nyssa following her and all the stress that the League of Assassins usually brought. And Laurel bugging him about not telling her sister was alive and then finding out about Team Arrow. He had been distracted, in fact the whole team had been distracted, for over a month.

Distracted enough they didn’t realize someone new was wandering around the town. Until people got killed. It was over now, they managed to figure out everything and the guy is in jail now, but if he hadn’t been so distracted, maybe it wouldn’t take him so long. One of the victims was hardly eighteen, just a kid. Knowing that, even after all that time, Oliver still can’t keep his city completely safe is worse than any injure.

“Guess what?” Felicity says as she puts her phone away, having made her order, “I talked to the Science Department today and they are coming up with this new spine implant to help paralyzed people walk, it seems really promising, I’m going to go by them later to see how the research is going but I think we’ll be able to really help people with that!” Felicity talks quickly, clearly excited by her day. “I’ve been trying to encourage QC to create tech that actually improves other people’s life and this is the first time I feel like we’re actually walking towards that.”

“I’m happy for you,” he says and Felicity narrows her eyes.

“Then why the grumpy face?” she tries to emulate his expression, making Oliver smile, “Talk to me, Oliver.”

“I’m just… feeling a little useless today, that’s all,” he tells her and makes an effort to sit a little so he can grab her hand, “I really am happy for you and QC, I just wish I was doing something productive too.”

“You are!  _ We  _ are. It was just a bad week, hon,” Felicity tries to comfort him, but Oliver just shakes his head.

He knows that. It’s not like it’s the first time something went wrong or someone died over his watch, it does happen less each life, with him being readier, but their own actions always affect enough things that he gets surprised more often than not.

“I just wanted to do more,” he tells her, thinking of completing it with a thought that has been running through his mind, but then giving up.

“What?” she asks, staring at him.

“It’s just something I’ve been thinking about…” Oliver blushes and feels a bit ridiculous about it, that’s his wife, she’s not going to judge him, “It’s probably a bad idea, but what if I ran for mayor?”

Felicity doesn’t seem to expect that answer, because her eyes widen at it, Oliver starts to get nervous and thinks of a way to backtrack it, but soon a smile starts to appear in her face and she gets closer to him, hitting his chest.

“That’s not a bad idea! It’s actually a great idea, Oliver!” she screams, “Why didn’t you tell me you were thinking about it?”

“I just told you!” He replies and Felicity seems to accept it, “I’ve just been thinking these last days of what I could do these next five years. Our city shouldn’t rely on vigilantes to be protected and that means a government that actually cares about the people and new measures on safety and education… What?” he asks when he notices Felicity is watching him with her hand on her face.

“I’m proud of you!” she says, pulling him to a hug, which normally Oliver would love, but he’s injured and the sudden move makes his stitches pull and he moans in pain, “Sorry. But this is amazing, Oliver. You are going to be a great mayor.”

“I don’t know… I might not even win, I mean, who’d even vote for me.”

“I would!” Felicity says and Oliver just glares at her, “And I’m sure a lot of other people too. Have you seen the last mayors this city had? Starling is begging to have a mayor like you, Oliver.”

“Thank you for believing in me,” he says, the confidence starting to grow in him.

He doesn’t know anything about politics besides maybe two classes he took last time he went to college, but he did see his mom work as a mayor for a bit in his last life and she didn’t have any political background either. Maybe this idea is not as crazy as he thought. If he and Felicity die or disappear on 2021, Oliver would like to know he left some legacy to his city.

“Always,” Felicity says and gets closer to him so she can give him a kiss.

Oliver moves a little, so he can hold Felicity in his arms and not feel pain, and soon she’s cuddling by his side, closing her eyes in a smile. He kisses the top of her head, feeling grateful for having her next to him.

 

~~

 

_ July 24th, 2019. _

Felicity narrows her eyes as she stops in front of her apartment’s door. She can hear some muffled voices, she’s pretty sure one of them is Oliver but the walls are too thick for her to be sure. Oh god, please don’t let him be throwing a surprise party for her. Not that she wouldn’t be happy to celebrate her birthday with her friends, but it had been a tiring day and she didn’t feel like socializing. There hadn’t been any suspicious activities in the city lately and Oliver himself told the team they wouldn’t be coming tonight. He wouldn’t have said that if they were all planning on showing up on her home already, right?

The day had started off amazingly, with her screaming Oliver’s name as he worked his tongue through her body. They could have easily stayed in bed the entire day, not doing anything else. But Felicity had to go to work, she might be QC’s CEO, but that hardly meant she could do what she wanted. And, certainly, the mayor can’t take a day off just because it’s his wife’s birthday. So, instead of letting her husband make her come as many times as he could, she dressed herself up and listened to the boring old men on the board speak the entire day. Trying to talk her down of her business proposals, saying they were too risky and that would never work out, looking at her with those condescending eyes, sure they know more about the world than her. Felicity just wants to scream about how she built a successful company from the ground and had more experience than any of them.

And then, of course, Moira came by to say hello, which is her code to spy on Felicity and see how she’s been acting as CEO. Walter had been more than happy to make Felicity the company’s CEO, but the same couldn’t be said about his wife. Not that Moira would ever say such out loud, oh no, she was very proud of her daughter-in-law, she said to everyone else. But Felicity  _ knew _ . Five years of marriage and Moira is still distrustful of her. So, Moira sat in front of her, making questions about the board meeting, new contracts and, by the way, just when would she and Oliver have children, does Felicity need to be reminded she’s thirty and they’ve been married for so long already. Moira even started to suggest she consults a fertility clinic to see if they couldn’t help with that. The only reason Felicity didn’t sent Moira away immediately was because she is Oliver’s mom, after all.

Felicity swears to god that if she turns that door and Moira is in her home, she’s turning away and leaving.

As she turns her key and opens her door, though, she doesn’t find anything. She frowns, trying to see Oliver, just as he steps out of the kitchen, holding a cake with a lit candle.

“Surprise!” William pops up behind his father, jumping to hug her as he and Oliver sing happy birthday to her.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” she asks, kissing her stepson’s head when they finish singing, “I thought you’d only come next week!”

“It was a trick!” William answers with a smile, “I wanted to surprise you, I’m staying here for two weeks!”

It’s summer vacations, which usually means that William stays during weekdays too sometimes, but usually not for so long.

“Samantha is traveling with Kevin,” Oliver tells her, leaving the cake in the dinner table and kissing her. “It’s a babymoon,” he whispers to her, but Felicity knows William heard it because he immediately looks down in a grumpy face.

Felicity knows that expression too well, as she’s seen thousands of times in his father’s face. Samantha had married Kevin just a couple months ago, so it surprises Felicity a little to know she’s already expecting a child. And she hadn’t said anything to Felicity! Felicity makes a mental note to send Samantha a message about it, not only to congratulate her on the baby, but to see how they are talking to William about it. He’s still getting used to the idea of Kevin, Felicity suspects he’s not happy about getting a baby sibling.

“You need to cut the cake, Felicity,” William says, and he smiles when he looks at her, probably trying to forget about his issues with his mom. “It looks pretty, right?”

“It does,” she agrees and serves the cake. She’s surprised Oliver hasn’t protested that they need to have dinner before they can eat cake, but she’s not about to complain.

“Is it good?” William asks, sounding particularly excited about it and Felicity just nods, having her mouth full of cake, “I’m the one who made it! Dad was watching, but he didn’t even need to help me!”

It doesn’t surprise her much, William loves baking and, as he gets older, Oliver helps less and less with the food when he’s there, just watching over his son. The cake is not anything fancy, just plain chocolate, but it tastes amazing and it’s so soft it almost melts in her mouth. William is just eleven years-old, Felicity is sure he’s going to be blowing everyone’s minds with his cakes when he’s an adult.

She feels the pride bursting through her chest. She loves this child as if he’s her own son, in some ways, she thinks he really is, she’s participated in every important decision about his life in the last six years. Not for the first time, Felicity finds herself thinking about the future. She and Oliver wouldn’t get to see William grow up. She doesn’t know what will happen once the date arrives, but she’s sure they won’t wake up in the past again, it doesn’t make any mathematical sense.

William is going to be okay. He has Samantha, Kevin and, now, his future sibling. Not to mention his entire extended family, she’s sure Thea won’t abandon her nephew. But she wishes they had more time with him. Time to see him growing up, becoming an adult. Oliver’s told her about how it hurt him that he never got to see William past thirteen before he got four years-old William, she didn’t get it at the time, but now she does.

Hours later, Felicity finds herself in the sofa. They have eaten dinner and some more cake, and then watched the new Lego movie together, and now the TV remains on some construction program, William is sleeping, his head on her lap, and Oliver’s hand is on her hair, going through it in slow motions. Just a normal quiet night in the Queen’s home, Felicity feels like she could fall asleep in his arms right there. Before it’s too late, she gets up, making a sleepy William walk to his room so he can sleep in his own bed.

“Did you enjoy your birthday?” Oliver asks her after they both snuggle into their bed.

“Yeah, I got to spend it with my two favorite people,” she smiles, turning her head so she can kiss him. “Although I do wish I got some more alone time with you so we could continue what we were doing this morning,” Felicity kisses him again and can feel Oliver smiling.

“As long as you manage to be quieter this time,” he says, running his hand through her body.

Felicity is about to protest that she hadn’t been that loud and she’s pretty used to being quiet when William sleeps there anyway, but any complaint is lost in the middle of moans when Oliver’s slips his hand down her panties and his mouth finds hers.

 

~~

 

_ December 31st, 2020. _

It’s their last day. If this means they are going to die after this, Oliver doesn’t know. Felicity has a million theories and no way to prove any of them, the answer will only come in time. Even though they have both accepted their reality, it doesn’t stop anxiety from showing up. Felicity has been getting more nauseous everyday as the date comes closer and he feels himself closing off to every other person.

Queen Consolidated is throwing a New Year Eve’s party and they both attend it, Oliver would much rather stay at home, enjoying his last moments with his wife, but Felicity is the company’s CEO and her presence is required. As the city’s mayor, Oliver should be walking around, as the party is full of important political and economic players that Oliver could convince of supporting his projects. Maybe guarantee that the city would continue the right path after he’s gone.

In reality, Oliver finds himself sitting in a table by himself, as he watches his family from afar. The party might be full of boring people, but, for the first time, he managed to get everyone important for him there. From where he sits, Oliver can see William talking to Zoe Ramirez, the only other person around his age. Samantha is not very far, sitting with her husband and baby Ethan, as she talks to Laurel, who has a two years-old Rebecca napping on her lap. Digg, Lyla, Thea, Roy, Curtis, Rene and Dinah all sit together in a table, drinking as they take time away from vigilante activities.

Oliver sees Tommy near Felicity, talking to Ray Palmer, probably about some new kind of technology. Tommy’s son, Ben, runs past Oliver, being followed by JJ and a young Sara Diggle, none of them caring about the lack of children in the party. Oliver follows the kids with his eyes, seeing when they stop by William and Zoe, talking for a minute before they start running again.

“Why are you sitting by yourself here?” Felicity’s voice calls his attention and, when he turns around, he sees that she left Tommy and Ray alone and walked to him. She pulls a chair and sits next to him, grabbing his hand.

“Just watching everyone,” he tells her and knows he doesn’t have to explain, “They are all here.”

“Except Sara,” Felicity completes.

Sara is away with Nyssa in Nanda Parbat, after a war that last over a year in which Sara almost died – and, for a while, they thought she had – and then ended up with Ra’s al Ghul being killed. Nyssa is now reconstructing the League of Assassins with her as their leader. And Sara is, of course, next to her, claiming Starling City has enough vigilantes as it is. That might be true, but Oliver wishes he could see his friend one last time, before.

“They are going to be okay,” Oliver says.

“We have lived a good life,” Felicity completes, knowing exactly where his thoughts are. “Over eighty years.”

It doesn’t feel like that many. There’s still so much Oliver wants to do, he wants to see his son get in college, his sister getting married – something he’s going to miss just by a few months -, he wants to grow old next to Felicity. He’s already been luckier than he could ever imagine, meeting Felicity and spending all those years next to her, becoming mayor, finding all his friends. In his first life, he could have never thought he would come so far. He is grateful for the chance he was given, but it doesn’t stop him from wanting more.

“I have to make a speech before midnight,” Felicity tells him, kissing his cheek before getting up, “We can go home after that if you want.”

He nods, and sees Felicity walking towards a microphone. Everyone there is waiting to hear from her, Felicity has managed to make Queen Consolidate grow so much under her leadership. They are leaving their legacies behind. Whatever happens, their lives have been worth it.

Felicity makes her speech and ends just in time for the countdown for the next year. Despite Felicity’s offer to leave as soon as the year changes, they find themselves lingering in the party, laughing with their friends. As the hours go by, the children start to complain about being tired and, one by one, their friends start to leave. When Thea and Roy leave them with just Curtis and Dinah, they look at each other and know it’s time to go.

Their home is a great contrast to the loud party, but they don’t try to fill the silence. They shower together and make love one last time in silence in their bed, without exchanging any words. Oliver looks into Felicity eyes and doesn’t say anything when the tears start falling, just hugs her closer to his body, kissing the top of her head.

“I don’t want to go,” she whispers.

“Hey,” he tells her, touching her face so she looks to him, “No matter what happens, we’ll be together.”

Felicity nods, closing the space between them so she can kiss his lips.

“I love you,” she says and rests her head in his chest, closing her eyes.

“I love you,” Oliver repeats, running his hand through her arm.

It shouldn’t be long now, he thinks to himself and kisses her head one more time, hugging her tighter. Maybe if he doesn’t sleep nothing will happen. He tries to fight his body, but soon his eyes are closing. Before he knows, they are both asleep. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oooooooh, and now what?! tune in next week to find out what happened to your favorite characters! :P
> 
> PLEASE, tell me what did you guys think of this last chapter! The ending is almost here, are you excited about it? Scared? Tell me all that is going through your mind in this moment, go go go! IM HYPED.


	10. The Rest of Their Lives

 

_ January 1st, 2021. _

Oliver wakes up in a jolt, his heart skipping fast, disoriented for a second. Felicity is still sleeping by his side, not moving at all. Scully is lying next to Felicity’s feet, she stares at him and meows, before closing her eyes again. He looks at his watch and notices it’s already eight a.m. Does this mean they continue there? He turns around, getting his phone, just making sure it’s the same date and the same universe. Nothing seems to have changed. Oliver closes his eyes again, not sure if this is some kind of dream.

Someone pokes him some while after, and he realizes he’s fallen asleep again. When he opens his eyes, Felicity is staring at him, looking confused.

“We’re still here,” she whispers to him, like she herself can’t believe it.

He looks at the clock again, it’s a little over nine a.m.

They don’t smile, just look at each other, waiting for reality to drop. Felicity moves first, getting her phone, she looks at it for a while, her eyes moving fast, and then she just drops it on her lap.

“I don’t understand,” she says once again and Oliver shrugs, he’s not about to complain about having more time.

He gets up and goes to the bathroom, takes a shower; when he comes back, Felicity is at the react same place, biting her nails. She has this frown that indicates she’s thinking about something, Oliver is sure she’s trying to come up with an explanation.

Oliver goes downstairs, starts making pancakes. He’s serving them when Felicity arrives downstairs, now dressed in casual clothes, but still looking lost. They eat in silence, Oliver turns on the TV, looking for news. Maybe some disaster is happening. Maybe…

There’s nothing. It’s the first day of the year and absolutely nothing is happening.

They are just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It’s midday when Felicity starts crying. He doesn’t know what changed, but something finally seems to click in her. Oliver hugs her and it takes a while for him to realize he’s crying too. Is it over? Will they be able to stay here? Would they live a little more just to be sent back again?

Felicity starts asking questions and it seems like all of her thoughts suddenly need to come out of her mind. Her babble is a confuse mess mixed with tears, but Oliver understands everything. Because she’s just saying what he’s thinking, verbalizing all their fears. They don’t have answers, they never have, but now they have even less.

They spend the entire day at home, in some kind of limbo, not sure of what to expect. Are they really there? Are they dead and this is heaven? It doesn’t feel like heaven, it feels like a normal day. A weird day, but that’s more because of their moods than anything else.

Oliver keeps looking at his watch, every hour that ticks by is completely new. They are in the future.

“Actually, we are in the present,” Felicity corrects him when he says it out loud, “We were just in the past for so long that the present now feels like the future…”

It’s the first time in the day she sounds more like herself and Oliver starts laughing. Felicity joins him and he’s sure they both sound crazy right now. They are laughing at something that is not funny at all, or maybe they are not even laughing about it. But neither of them knows how to deal with the mix of emotions they are feeling.

It’s 10p.m and they find themselves lying in their bed.

“Do you think we’re going to stay?” she asks. “Will we wake up here again tomorrow?”

“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see,” it’s the only answer he can give to her, “Live one day at a time.”

That’s how everyone lives, not knowing what to expect of the next day, but it seems like such a foreigner concept. Felicity just nods and rearranges herself on the bed so she’s cuddling him.

He’s still scared this is not real, that he’ll wake up – or not wake up – at any moment. But he breathes and waits and sleeps. And he wakes up, the next day and the otherl, and eventually it does not feel that weird anymore.

 

~~

 

_ January 30th, 2021. _

It’s been almost a month. An extra month, 30 days. Felicity is not sure how long she’ll keep counting the days, but she can’t stop. Every time she goes to sleep, a part of her is scared of not waking up, but it’s getting easier with time. Oliver doesn’t seem to be much bothered about it anymore, so Felicity tries to move on too. Just live her life, like everything is normal.

It  _ is _ normal, she supposes. No one besides Oliver even suspects anything happened. Or didn’t happen, in this case. But Felicity can’t stop being scared, what if this is a dream? What if she wakes up? She doesn’t want to let herself be comfortable into this life again just for it to be ripped away from her.

She doesn’t want it to happen again, she thinks as she stares at the package in her hand, the tears starting to form in her eyes.

Oliver was the one to point out that her period should have arrived a while ago. Not that Felicity didn’t know, she knew and had decided to keep ignoring it for how long she could. She ignored the nausea, the dizziness and the fact that, maybe, just maybe, she hadn’t been so worried about taking the pill during December because she was so busy thinking they wouldn’t even live to see another year. And now, there she is, doing yet another pregnancy test.

Felicity doesn’t need one. In her heart, she knows the answer. She has been pregnant before, she knows how it felt for her. She also knows exactly when her last period was and knows that was  _ too _ long ago to blame on stress.

Felicity tells herself there’s no way to know for sure, that’s why she buys the test. Oliver is waiting anxiously in the other side of the door, giving her privacy to pee on the stick. Or, more accurately, to stare at it, searching for courage to look at the result. She thinks of just getting out of the door and let Oliver see first. He won’t even need to say it, his face will tell her the result.

But she doesn’t do that. She stays there, until Oliver knocks on the door, asking her if everything is okay. She answers a quick yes, scared he’ll come in.

Her hands are trembling when she finally picks the stick to see what it says.  _ Positive _ . Of course, it is. Felicity can’t stop the tears from falling and she doesn’t know if they are happy tears or not.

She opens the door, still holding the stick, and goes straight to the bed, sitting in it. Oliver is pacing around the room and goes to sit next to her.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he starts to tell her, and then his eyes go over the test, “Felicity?”

“It’s positive,” she whispers and can see Oliver frown.

“I don’t understand… Why are you crying? I thought you wanted this.”

It’s not an accusation, Oliver is confused. More than that, she can see he’s holding his happiness because he doesn’t know where she stands. Doesn’t know if she wants the baby or not.

God, does she want it.

“What if it goes away?” she asks, verbalizing her fears, “What if  _ we _ go away?”

“We’re not going anywhere, we’re staying this time,” Oliver says with a certainty that can only be fake.

“You don’t know that,” she answers and start crying more as she thinks of how horrible it will be if he’s wrong. “It’s our baby, Oliver. I can’t lose it. I can’t handle it,” she might have continued talking, but she chokes on her own tears and Oliver hugs her, a soothing hand on her back.

“It’s going to be okay,” Oliver tells her, “It is. We can’t stop living our lives because we are scared we might lose them. It took me a long time to learn that lesson, but I know it’s worth it. I could die at any time being Green Arrow,” Felicity starts to protest, but he continues talking, “We know I could, it’s a dangerous job, but we go out anyway and do our best to come back home every day.”

Her heart is still hurting, but she stops to listen to his words and they make sense. Some tears are still falling, but her crying has slowed down a lot.

“I know it’s still so soon, it’s just starting to feel normal again,” he completes, “If you want to… end it, we can wait to try again later. Because I know we’re not going anywhere.”

Felicity frowns at the suggestion, she hadn’t even occurred to her to have an abortion. She wouldn’t do that, she wants that baby, had wanted it for too long. She’s just scared.

“I want to have it,” she answers him, noticing how Oliver breathes in relief, “I want it so much, Oliver, you have no idea.”

“I think I do have an idea,” he tells her and kisses the top of her head, “I know we have William, but we never got to have the whole thing. The pregnancy and taking care of a baby. I’ve always wanted to have that with you.”

Felicity nods, not knowing how to express how much she wants children with Oliver. How much she dreamed about it over the years. She had made peace with the fact that it wouldn’t happen, but it doesn’t mean she stopped wanting it any less. She turns so she can kiss Oliver and then buries her head in his shoulder, letting Oliver hold her.

“We’re going to do this then?” he asks, still a bit insecure about it.

“Yes, we’re having a baby,” she says and, for the first time since she confronted herself about it, she lets herself smile and a giggle escapes her lips. “We’re having a baby,” she repeats.

She feels a tear falling over her cheeks again, but this time she’s sure it’s happiness she’s feeling. When she looks up to see Oliver’s face, his smile is so wide it makes her heart full.

Her fear doesn’t go away entirely and she’s sure she’s going to be way more anxious about her pregnancy than most people. But she has faith, there’s no other option.

 

~~

 

_ April 4th, 2021 _

Oliver can’t believe his luck. He also can’t believe he’d ever get to a point where he’d think he got everything he always wanted. It’s his sister’s wedding day and, for the first time, Oliver is there to see it. In some part of his brain, there’s registered the last talk he had with Thea in his first life. Her drinking and addiction problem, the void inside of her she kept trying to fill with parties. Roy had died years before, just one of the victims of his crusade. But that thought doesn’t pop up so much anymore, Roy is right there, has been for the last four lives too.

When Oliver walks Thea down the aisle, it’s Roy who waits for her on the other side. Thea is wearing a fancy dress of her own design and the wedding is a big event, full of people, one she spent over a year organizing. But, most importantly, Thea has the biggest smile on her face when she meets Roy and that smile doesn’t leave her face at any second during the ceremony. Their mother seems happy enough too and, although she doesn’t shed any tears of happiness, there’s a genuine smile on her face. Roy might not be her first choice for Thea, but after ten years, she has learned to accept her children’s choices.

He looks to Felicity, who stands as Thea’s maid of honor. Her hand is standing on her belly, like she’s gotten used to do, like that comforted her that the baby is still there. He doesn’t blame her, he doesn’t waste any opportunity to do the same. Her belly had just started being more apparent, popping a couple weeks ago, and Oliver thought Felicity had never been more beautiful. Her eyes meet his and she smiles, he doesn’t know if she’s happy because of Thea or if she’s also thinking of the baby. It doesn’t matter, he knows Felicity is just as happy as him to be there.

It might have taken a little more before she got used to the idea, but she’s just as excited now. The time Felicity had some spotting had been tense, she convinced herself she was losing the baby and it took having an ultrasound to convince her everything is okay with the baby. With their daughter.

They hadn’t told anyone yet it’s a girl. Felicity had a lot to say about gender and how she didn’t want to impose anything to their kid, but honestly Oliver just wants to share anything and everything they know about the baby. And with their entire family reunited for Thea’s wedding, he’s not sure how long he’ll be able to keep his mouth shut, it had been hard enough keeping it from William for so long, especially when his son is so curious about it and Oliver knows he’ll be happy to have a sister. William already has Ethan, from his mom’s side, and since he learned about Felicity’s pregnancy he’s been vocal about how he wishes it is a girl. Not that he wouldn’t love a brother, even though William wasn’t happy about having a sibling when Samantha shared the news, he loved his brother from the first moment they met.

“Congratulations, Thea, I’m so happy for you,” he tells his sister later, when he sees her again at her party. “I’m glad I got to be here to see it.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Ollie,” she answers, but he can see the emotion in her eyes, “I guess I owe you congratulations too.”

“You’ve already congratulated me for the baby,” he says with a frown.

“But that was before I knew it was a girl!” she explains, “So much for not stealing the spotlight today, Ollie. I’ll only forgive you because I’m so excited to have a niece. I can just think of all the cute baby clothes I’ll buy her!”

Although he laughs, his eyes search for Felicity, who is near them, talking to William. She sees him staring at her and grimaces, Oliver just narrows his eyes, knowing Felicity was the one who told Thea.

“I’m sorry!” she says when he approaches her, “It just slipped…”

He can’t pretend to be mad, he’s too happy about finally being able to tell everyone without Felicity scolding him.

“At least I’ll be able to tell William,” he says.

“Yeah, about that…”

 

~~

 

_ September 5th, 2021. _

“She’s the most beautiful baby in the world,” Felicity says, probably for the thousandth time in the last two days.

She can’t help it, she just loves her baby so much. Amalia Eliana Queen had been born on September 3rd, after four hours of labor. Giving birth might not be the most pleasant experience – not even close – but Felicity didn’t mind at all, especially when she sees the end result right in front of her. Just a bit of hair and big blue eyes, looking randomly at places at all time, still trying to figure out the world.

Oliver nuzzles Amalia’s belly in response. They are just lying in bed, with Amalia spread in the middle of them both, who can’t just stop looking at their baby girl like she’s the single most important thing in the world. And she might as well be. Felicity pokes her daughter’s cheek, making her smile. Felicity knows it’s just a reflex and not a social smile – she wouldn’t be able to do that for at least a couple months – but Felicity doesn’t mind. She can’t wait to see her daughter laughing for the first time, walking, talking… She starts to tear up again just for thinking about it.

Just the night before, she woke up from a nightmare that she was sent back in time and Amalia had disappeared. But, when she opened her eyes, she found Oliver holding their daughter, whispering to her in a soft voice about how much fun they’d have when they got back home. They are not going anywhere, that’s what she repeats to herself every time the fear starts to come.

Donna told her that part of being a mom is being worried about your child all the time. But it can’t stop you or your kid from living. You just have to do your best to keep them safe and hope that nothing happens. Felicity knows that there are other dangers in life, especially in their line of work, but she doesn’t want to give up on them.

“Look how she’s observing everything, she’s so smart already,” Oliver comments and Felicity just laughs.

She knows Amalia is probably just as smart as any other newborn. But it’s  _ her _ baby, so maybe Amalia is a little genius and is actually paying attention. No matter what, for her Amalia would always be the smartest baby ever. At least until they have another child.

“Do you think she’s the reason we time traveled?” she asks Oliver and blushes. She’s had this theory in the last couple months but didn’t have the courage to vocalize it, but seeing her daughter with her own eyes, it sounds to her very possible that Amalia could change the universe. “We kept going back because we had failed to make her?”

“Maybe,” he says, not taking his eyes off the baby, “Maybe she’s very important for world’s history, destiny had to make sure she was born.”

“I believe it, look at her, she’s so special already.”

“Maybe she’ll become president,” he tells her, grinning at Felicity, “Are you going to rule the earth, sweetheart?” he whispers to the baby, kissing her head.

“Well, she’s already a Queen,” Felicity says and smile, “I don’t care about what she’s going to be, she’s the most important person for me.”

Of course, Oliver and William are right there with Amalia in the “most important person” podium, but right now Felicity’s thoughts are all about her daughter. Amalia starts closing her eyes and Felicity picks her up, ready to put her to sleep on her crib, right next to the bed.

Amalia has her own room, they bought a house during her second trimester, so they could have space for all of their children. Amalia’s room is just between theirs and William’s, and in their other side there’s a guest room that Felicity hopes to use for someone else besides Scully in the future. She and Oliver haven’t talked about that yet, she’s sure they’ll be busy enough with Amalia for a while to even consider it, but if they stay… She wants that.

She looks at her baby once more as she lays Amalia on the crib. She should be using that time to catch up on sleep while she can, it won’t be long before the baby wakes up crying, but Felicity can’t bring herself to move away. She’s so incredible happy.

“Come on, she’s not going anywhere,” Oliver tells her, embracing her from behind.

“I know,” she answers and turns around so she can smile at him. “I just love looking at her.”

She lets Oliver pull her to bed and snuggles up to him, hoping she’ll get at least three hours of sleep this time. She’s sure in a few days she’ll be a lot more tired about waking up in the middle of the night and having to take care of a baby, but at this second, she doesn’t care at all. Not if, at the end of the day, she has her daughter with her.

It’s not that she was unhappy before, she was very happy with just Oliver and William. If their lives hadn’t continued, Felicity knows her life would have been worth living. It had been a full life and she had been happy. But it’s even better now that she has Amalia and she’s glad she has this chance. Felicity wouldn’t trade this for anything.

 

~~

 

_ February 12th, 2025. _

Oliver is amazed by his life. Next to him, Felicity is in a hospital bed, but not for a bad reason at all. In her arms, their second daughter just finished being breastfed and looks around with curious eyes. Libbi has only been in the world for a few hours now, but Oliver can already see her own personality manifested in her eyes and babbles, he didn’t know a newborn could make so many sounds. He shouldn’t be surprised, as Felicity herself told him, considering how active she had been even in the belly, moving so much more than Amalia ever had. This one would be trouble.

Not that Amalia had been an  _ easy _ child either, the three years-old could be especially stubborn and easily-irritated sometimes. Oliver thinks there’s no such a thing as an easy child, raising a human being is always a hard task. But one he does with pleasure.

He knew he liked being a dad as soon as he met William, but having his daughters confirmed it. Oliver loved his city, he’s still the Green Arrow and would be as long as age permitted, he’s also really satisfied as Starling’s mayor. After years in politics, he can see a change in the city and he knows he’s doing a good job. But none of that compares to being a father to his children.

“Hey, can we come in?” William asks, his head showing up suddenly in the door.

The answer never comes, because the next second Amalia is walking through the small opening of the door, pushing her brother to the side and going directly to the bed where she sees her mom.

“Mommy, you are sick?” Amalia asks, trying to get in the bed and failing because of the height, and then deciding to go to the chair where her father sits. “Mommy is sleeping?”

It’s not the first time Amalia sees one of her parents in the hospital. Unfortunately, they have been there more times than Oliver would like, with some close-calls happening in their vigilante work. Amalia is still very young to understand what they do, but she already associates hospitals with her parents being hurt.

“I’m awake, baby,” Felicity answers, “Just here with your sister. Remember what we told you?” she explains, comforting Amalia, who had been left with William the night before when Oliver took Felicity to the hospital, “Do you want to meet your sister?”

Amalia seems to think about this question, frowning. Oliver and Felicity had talked to her a lot about the baby sister she would have, but it’s different from actually seeing her. William has also come near Felicity, but he just glances at the baby and looks back to his other sister, more interested in watching Amalia’s reaction.

“Come on, Mali, didn’t you just ask me about Libbi?” William asks, encouraging the little girl. “Aren’t you curious to see what she looks like?”

Finally, Amalia nods, and Oliver pick her up so she can look at her sister. Felicity moves a little to the side, giving him space to sit on the edge of the bed, still holding his oldest daughter. William takes his place in the chair, still looking at them.

“That’s Libbi,” Felicity says, slowly bringing the baby closer to her sister.

“She’s small,” Amalia says and, with some uncertain, she touches the baby’s hair, “And hairy,” she laughs at that.

Libbi does have a lot more of hair than Amalia had, but Oliver finds it very cute. He finds himself touching the baby’s hair out of habit, the softness of it is unlike any other. Libbi chooses that moment to yawn and Amalia gasps at that.

“It’s her naptime?” she asks.

“Yeah, she’s a little baby, so she’s going to be doing a lot of sleeping now,” he tells her.

“And then I can play with her?” Amalia considers, eyeing the baby.

“When she’s older, now she’s too little,” Felicity says and Amalia seems to think about this.

“Okay, I think we can keep her,” she says after a while, not sounding particularly sure about it and making everyone else laugh.

“I’m glad you approve of her,” Oliver says, kissing the top of her head.

Amalia doesn’t understand what they are laughing about and continues to see her sister, poking her a little, until Felicity deems it enough and decides William should hold Libbi. Although this is his third baby sibling and he has hold babies many times before, William seems a bit nervous about it. He’s seventeen now and still in a very awkward phase, but he nods and Oliver slowly passes the baby from Felicity to him, making sure William is sitting on the chair when he does that.

Amalia jumps out of the bed without warning, walking to the chair and touching Libbi’s head.

“Careful, honey,” Felicity yells, almost getting out of the bed to get her baby back.

“I am!” Amalia answers immediately, but hesitates a little when she’s going to touch her sister again.

He loses time staring at his kids for a while, just turning when he sees Felicity moving and realize she’s grabbing her phone in the nightstand and trying to get a good picture of the children. Her phone has been next to her bed since Libbi was born, with Felicity taking a million pictures of her daughter as soon as she could stop looking at the baby for a second. Now, she takes a picture of all of their children together for the first time. Oliver understands her, he’s trying to engrave this moment in his memory, but he’s going to be happy to look at the photograph later.

Sometimes, Oliver thinks he died at some point during his life and he’s in heaven right now. He doesn’t have any other explanation for the love in his heart when he sees all his family reunited. Soon, the rest of their family and friends are going to come by to meet the newest member of the family. And then they’ll go home to find Donna babysitting Amalia and William showing up, even though he’s supposed to be in his mom’s house.

Oliver just smiles as he thinks about the rest of his life.

 

~~

 

_ May 6th, 2030. _

Life is not perfect. Sometimes, it’s not even close to perfect. Working without knowing the future is harder than either Felicity or Oliver remembered and it’s a lesson they learn during the years. Mistakes are made and not all of their friends survive it, and some days Felicity wonders if they are not cheating destiny and when will time catch up on them.

Just a few days ago, William insisted on going out in the field to help his dad and none of them have recovered from this shock yet. William might be an adult at twenty-two and have done a lot of training over the years, but he never showed any interest in joining Team Arrow, unlike John Junior, who is fifteen and can’t stop talking about becoming part of the team. Samantha is still pissed about it, but can’t do much now that William moved out. Oliver is just worried.

And so is Felicity. She’s worried about William sudden interest, about Oliver’s recent injuries that are making him a liability on field but he refuses to admit, about Queen Consolidated entering a bad spot that she’s not sure how she’s going to recover from.

She wants a vacation. Drink a glass of wine, have a bubble bath and crazy sex with her husband without worrying about the children hearing her. But, of course, that doesn’t happen. Instead after only sleeping a couple hours during the night and spending the day hearing complaints and threats of the board, she arrives home to find her two daughters arguing in full volume.

“I’m going to murder you!” Amalia is screaming.

Felicity just shuts her eyes and tries to plan how to get to the restroom and get a painkiller without being seen by the children.

“I hate you!” Libbi yells back and some kind of physical fight seem to be going on.

She tries to close the door in silence, but it doesn’t seem to work, because a few seconds later the two girls just come running to the living room, yelling after their mother.

“Mom, you won’t believe what this creature has done!” Amalia is shouting at her.

“You are a murderer!” Libbi yells at the same time and jumps on her sister, biting her and making Amalia scream.

“See, she’s an animal!!”

“QUIET!” Felicity screams, finally quitting her patience, “I don’t know what is going here. We’re going to figure out soon, but first, I’m going to take a shower and I don’t want to be interrupted. Libbi, we don’t bite other people. Amalia, don’t call your sister an animal. Each of you are going to go to your own rooms and calm down and I don’t want to hear a thing until I come back, okay?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer, going upstairs without looking back. She’s pretty sure one of her daughters just kicked the other the exact second she turned away, but she doesn’t care at the moment. After she’s shower, she’s going to find out what this was all about.

“So, that was totally not my fault,” William, who is supposed to be babysitting the girls, says, from his door when Felicity walks by it in the hallway. “Libbi’s fish died and she’s blaming Mali, I’m not sure who is the guilty one. Got tired of their yelling half an hour ago.”

Felicity just sighs. That fish was a bad idea from the start, she told Oliver this, but he couldn’t say no to his kids. And Libbi just had to ask for a new animal every week, Oliver figured the fish was the one thing that he could provide – instead of the dog, rabbit, goat or, god forbid, snake, Libbi had also asked.

“It’s okay, Will, I’m going to talk to them soon,” she says in defeat, “Are you staying for dinner?”

What she really means is if he’s making them dinner. Oliver already texted her saying he’s going to be late today and she doesn’t feel like facing the girls’ anger if she’s the one making dinner.  

“Sure, don’t worry about it,” he tells her and Felicity thanks God for her son.

She just goes to her room, closing the door behind her and finding two cats in her bad. Scully is sleeping next to the youngest addition to their household, Meredith, named by Amalia – she’s still not sure why.

“So, which one of you killed Libbi’s fish?” she asks the cats, who just stare at her with completely innocent faces.

The fish was high on a shelf so the cats couldn’t get to it, but Felicity knows they can do crazy things when motivated. Scully is probably too old for that, so she’s betting Meredith is the guilty one of that crime.

She feels tempted to just lie in her bed and take a nap, but she doesn’t have that luxury. It’s a few hours and many lecturing later that she has time to relax. Libbi refuses to admit Meredith would ever kill her fish – they are  _ friends _ , Mom! – but she apologized for destroying her sister’s papers – those were my homework, you idiot – and biting Amalia without proof. Felicity gave up on trying to make Libbi understand that even if she had proof she shouldn’t bite her sister.

By the end of the dinner, they were not speaking to each other, but at least that also meant they weren’t arguing either. According to their history, that meant they’d be friends again by morning.

Now, William had just left home and the two girls had just been put into bed, after just a little fight. And Felicity could finally relax. She just pushes Scully to the other side of the bed, so she doesn’t have to move again, and buries her face in her pillow.

She probably naps a little because next thing she knows, Oliver is trying to tuck her in bed without waking her up.

“Sorry I got home so late,” he tells her, once Felicity sits in the bed and greets him, “Got hold up in City Hall,” he says, running his hand through his hair.

So much of his hair is grey now. Felicity remembers the happiness of finding more grey hair in herself and Oliver in the past, it makes her so incredibly happy that they are finally growing old together. It also helps that she finds Oliver extremely sexy as he gets greyer.

“Lucky you, Libbi’s fish died and she decided to kill Amalia in revenge,” Felicity sums up the day, “So very stressing.”

“Are they okay now?”

“Meh,” Felicity shrugs, “They’ll probably forget about it soon enough. I, however, am probably scarred for life.”

“We should have known the fish was a bad idea,” Oliver says and Felicity has to bite her tongue back from replying, she’s not going to say she said this and pick a fight with her husband, no matter how stressed she is.

“Remember when I was CEO of my own company, very successful with no child and wasn’t dead tired by ten pm?” she asks, looking at the clock. Oliver laughs at that.

“Well, but you weren’t as happy as you are with us,” he tells, nuzzling his nose with hers and kissing her, getting under the sheets as well. “Besides, you said yourself that the world wanted this to happen. Time insisted on creating our family,” he points out.

Felicity nods at that, she truly does believe that something – time, destiny or God, she doesn’t know – made their time loop happen so she and Oliver could get together and have their daughters. She knows that deep in her heart.

It doesn’t mean that some days she wouldn’t like just a bit more of quiet in her life. But in the end, she knows this is the happier she’s been. She could have lived a thousand lives, but this one would be her favorite.

“Yeah, you’re all lucky I love you,” she says, kissing Oliver and then resting to sleep. 

This life may not be perfect, but it’s her home and she loves it. 

 

the end. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaand so it ends! What did you guys think? I went with the easy-happy route, because come on, they deserved it. Also, I happen to love happy endings.  
>   
> A few things:
> 
> 1 - You may or may not have noticed that I turned this into a series (called "Replay AU" because this was an impulse and I didn't stop to think of a series title). But what would I do that? As you can see, the ending is very clear, there's not much story left to be told. However, I did say like on chapter 3 that I was thinking of writing scenes that happened off-screen in this 'verse, so that's what this is about. It's going to be prompt based, so I'm only writing what people ask me. So you want to know about how Sara and Nyssa met in the first life? Or maybe how Felicity and Thea's first meeting went in the fifth life? As long as it happened on the 'verse (in ANY life), I'm up to writing it! You can tell me what you'd like to see here or ask me on my [tumblr](http://bisexualfelicity.tumblr.com/ask).  
>   
> 2 - I'm also planning on going back to my other multi-chapter fic now. It also happens to be about time traveling (I have a type, sorry), so if you guys wanna check it out: [Too soon or too late (to say goodbye)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6938299/chapters/15822886)
> 
> 3 - Thank you so much for everyone who read it. Especially to those who commented, comments made me so happy and I'm sure I wouldn't be able to finish it without the support.
> 
> 4 - It's never too late to comment. Please tell me your opinion!! This is my first finished multi-chapter in this fandom (and first in many years!) and I really hope you guys enjoyed it. Tell me your favorite parts of it! I beg you.
> 
> That's it, thank you all again for reading and sticking 'til the end!! I hope to see you again soon! Don't forget to leave kudos, comment and tell me if/what you'd like to read in this 'verse (or any other tbh).
> 
> Adiós,  
> Flávia

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter was more of a prologue, so it's a little shorter than usual. I'm going to try to post a chapter every week, by Friday/Saturday!
> 
> Please, tell me what you thought of it in the comments, I'd DIE to know your opinions of it!! And don't forget to leave kudos if you enjoyed it!
> 
> You can contact me through tumblr if you need, I'm bisexualfelicity over there!
> 
> Hope y'all have a lovely week,  
> Flávia


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